‘Let’s go’: Injury tolls irrelevant for rematch, says Robinson – NRL.COM

Roosters coach Trent Robinson has hosed down talk Thursday night’s grand final rematch will be ruined by each club’s heavy injury tolls, declaring both teams will field 17 players so “let’s go”.
The 2019 grand final coaches, Robinson and Ricky Stuart, named their 21-man squads on Tuesday but as many as half of the players who featured in last year’s decider could be missing through injury, moving clubs or retirement.
Robinson remained hopeful but coy on the availability of co-captains Boyd Cordner, Jake Friend (head knocks) and veteran winger Brett Morris (groin) for the rematch.
However, he was reluctant to offer any empathy towards the Raiders after their own season-ending injuries to English hooker Josh Hodgson and winger Bailey Simonsson last week.
The Green Machine were already without John Bateman, Corey Horsbugh, Sia Soliola and Emre Guler prior to their most-recent additions to the casualty ward.
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“I think that’s what a squad is for, that’s why you assemble a squad, you have faith in all the players that are going to run out,” Robinson said.
“The 17 players at the Roosters are going to be ready to go. There are 17 players for us and them, so let’s go.”
In the past month the Roosters have lost Victor Radley and Sam Verrills for the remainder of the year to ACL injuries.
Robinson used the latest five-try effort from Matt Ikuvalu to highlight the importance of having depth in a first-grade squad.
“That’s the thing that happens, it creates opportunity,” Robinson said.
“You can look at it in a negative way or be positive in what you’ve produced outside of the NRL players and get excited about the future.
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“That’s what we’ve done and we’ve really enjoyed watching them play, watching them train and then actually creating change.
“It’s about playing NRL but you want to produce guys who are going to create change as soon as they start playing.
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