The rest of the NRL has been put on notice. After a slow start to the 2026 season, the Sydney Roosters have quietly, and then very loudly, announced themselves as genuine premiership threats — and rugby league legend Billy Slater says the competition should be very worried.
“This is a Roosters side that is finding its best footy at exactly the right time,” Slater warned in his weekly analysis. “When you’ve got that much experience in the spine and that much firepower out wide, they become very hard to beat. The rest of the competition needs to wake up — the Roosters are becoming dangerous again.”
It’s hard to argue with him.
After a mixed start to the 2026 season, the Roosters have found their stride, reeling off a four-game winning streak and piling on the points to announce their title credentials to the rest of the competition. The engine room of that surge? A spine that is the envy of the competition.
The halves combination of Sam Walker and Daly Cherry-Evans has been devastating, combining for 167 points in just one month of football. Walker, electric and instinctive, is playing the best football of his young career. Cherry-Evans, the seasoned veteran, is providing exactly the composure and big-game experience the Roosters have been missing.
The hope at Bondi Junction is that Cherry-Evans can have a similar effect to Cooper Cronk, who joined the Roosters for the final two years of his career and led them to back-to-back premierships in 2018 and 2019. With the 37-year-old halfback looking sharp and hungry, that dream is looking increasingly realistic.
And it’s not just in the halves where the Roosters are clicking. Winger Daniel Tupou is closing in on a remarkable piece of history, sitting just one try away from joining Billy Slater himself in third place on the NRL’s all-time tryscoring list. Meanwhile, Mark Nawaqanitawase has been an unstoppable force, scoring eight tries in his last five games at Allianz Stadium alone.
Up front, the Roosters are just as menacing. Spencer Leniu and Lindsay Collins lead one of the biggest packs in the competition, with Naufahu Whyte, Angus Crichton, Victor Radley and Siua Wong all bringing punch and physicality through the middle.
The Roosters head into 2026 with a clear focus — winning their first premiership in seven years. After years of near misses, roster rebuilds and finals heartbreak, all the pieces appear to finally be falling into place under Trent Robinson.
Slater’s message to the rest of the competition is simple: don’t sleep on the Roosters. They’ve been here before. They know how to win. And right now, they look like a team that is hitting their stride at exactly the right moment.
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