Trent Robinson won three premierships at the Roosters with Craig Fitzgibbon in his coaching crew, but he says there’s no time for sentiment this week as the close friends fight for a place in the preliminary final.

Fitzgibbon won a competition with the Roosters in 2002 as a player and spent 10 years at the club as an assistant coach before he made the move to Cronulla in 2022.

He has led them to the finals in all five of his seasons at the helm, but his former mentor says friendships mean nothing with the winner of Saturday’s showdown to face the Dolphins in a grand final qualifier.

“It doesn’t matter, to be honest,” Robinson said, with Saturday’s clash to be his third finals game coaching against Fitzgibbon.

“At this period of time, we love the work that we do and we honour the clubs that we play for and coach for, and that’s our role, so all of that gets put aside.

“If that emotion creeps in, then you know you’re not built for the role, so you go about your business and you’re purely focused on what the Roosters need to do for this week.

“That’ll always be there for us, but this week it’s not about us.”

Fitzgibbon said he was a very different coach to the man he worked with for so long and confirmed there had been no correspondence between the pair this week.

“I had 10 years working with Trent, so it was definitely a long apprenticeship,” he said.

“I had plenty of lessons and am forever grateful for my time there and his mentoring of me to be a coach.

“He was always supportive of me and backed me to take the opportunity when that came, so I’ll be forever grateful for that.

“This week is about Sharks v Roosters. While we talk regularly, we’re not talking this week.”

The NRL is littered with former Roosters assistants who have come from the Robinson coaching tree, with Knights boss Justin Holbrook one of the best stories after taking them from the wooden spoon to the second week of the finals.

“We’re a close group from a friendship point of view,” Robinson said.

“You know there’s a shared care and love for each other in all of that, but it’s footy. No one cares about that outside of our personal relationships, so it’s about Saturday night.

“For Justo, it’s about Sunday for him, and it’s about who’s going to play and we’ve got roles to play.

“Our role is to go out there and coach a team and offer the best support we can to those players to go and nail their best game. That’s our role, so the stories around it are nice but it doesn’t matter. It’s about us.

“I can’t wait to watch our guys play and my role is to support them in doing that.”

Originally published as ‘We’re not talking’: Craig Fitzgibbon and Trent Robinson won three titles together, but they won’t be friends this week