NRL season preview: good business primes Roosters for Storm chasing | Paul Connolly

Cooper Cronk boosts the Roosters’ premiership credentials what does his absence mean for the premiers?At some point in life you’d hope to attain the kind of clear-eyed perspective that has you agreeing with Tennyson, that it is indeed better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But as so many young NRL fans will discover this coming season you don’t reach this point without first enduring a lot of long, lonely nights tearfully singing Simply the Best while hate-watching YouTube highlights packages of your former love carving them up.Player movements are commonplace in professional sport but the shuffling of the decks that has taken place in the NRL over the off-season has been remarkable. It’s as if the clubs had a key party over summer. While it’s torn young hearts asunder to see their once favourite players pull on the colours of another club (a situation referenced by the NRL’s latest ad campaign) the club-swapping has added considerable intrigue to the 2018 season which commences at Kogarah Jubilee Oval on Thursday night. Related: A new dawn: how a new coach can impact an NRL club | Nick Tedeschi Related: NRL opens up can of worms with play-the-ball crackdown | Matt Cleary Related: The case of Matthew Lodge: when a line in the sand must be drawn | Nick Tedeschi Continue readingread full article

Source: TheGuardian

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