Plenty of assistants have made the big leap into head coaching and have struggled early on, but Justin Holbrook has made an immediate impact at the Knights as he prepares to return to Sydney where his side will take on the Roosters.<\/p>\n
Holbrook spent a couple of seasons at the Roosters as their attack coach after he was let go by the Titans, with players from the Sydney glamour club regularly praising him for making them one of the most prolific teams with the ball.<\/p>\n
He was rewarded with the Knights gig where he\u2019s turned the worst attack into something a lot more potent, with last year\u2019s wooden-spooners a joy to watch despite being without injured stars Kalyn Ponga and Dylan Brown.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a really good man manager,\u201d Roosters forward Angus Crichton said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows how to get the best out of his players, and it\u2019s impressed me seeing him go across and still be happy. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou see a lot of great assistants go across, and it helps when you\u2019re winning, but he looks like he\u2019s learnt a lot from his first head coaching gig. I\u2019m so happy for him, he\u2019s such a great bloke. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of time for \u2018Justo\u2019. He really got us humming, so it\u2019ll be a good test for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Roosters will host Newcastle on Sunday after they stormed home to beat the Sharks in Perth on a day they couldn\u2019t hold on to the ball for the first 20 minutes but steadied things in the second half to kick clear. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re still so far from our best and we\u2019re nowhere near where we want to be yet,\u201d Crichton said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got so much work to do, and we were back working hard again out there today. We are still nowhere near where we want to get to; we\u2019re super aware and not running around thinking we\u2019re world beaters yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just still breaking it down today, looking at some of our timing and some of our shapes. We\u2019re still not in the right spots at the right times, and I think that\u2019s only going to come with a little bit more game time together and continuity. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll keep building those combinations and making sure that everyone\u2019s doing their job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Roosters won last week\u2019s game by 12 points but it could have been more had Robert Toia not been denied a clear try by the Bunker for a disrupter which sparked plenty of outrage and led to an admission from the NRL that the call was wrong.<\/p>\n
Toia missed training on Tuesday as he recovers from the flu, with Crichton joking that mid-season interpretations are nothing new. <\/p>\n
\u201cHow long have you been in rugby league for? You shouldn\u2019t be surprised. This is what we do!\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not surprised. This stuff happens every year; there are always different things that pop up, and it\u2019s just how as a team you can get around it, understand it, and practise it best. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no point in having a sulk and crying about it. The only way you move forward is by adapting to it and making sure you\u2019re across it, and then when it changes back, you\u2019re ready to go. Hopefully in the next couple of rounds, we\u2019ll be back to where it needs to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of chat about it, and the NRL came out and said that they got that one wrong. It\u2019s good that hopefully they can try and stamp it out and a bit of common sense will prevail in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Crichton is getting used to fatherhood after he and his partner welcomed Sullivan into the world on Easter Sunday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe went in there (the hospital) on Saturday night, and he arrived Sunday morning,\u201d Crichton said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe club was great. The boys were meant to train on Monday, but I called the coach on Sunday and he let me have Monday off. I came in on Tuesday and just did the bare minimum; I did field, missed all the meetings, did some gym, and cruised home after that. <\/p>\n
\u201cI went back to the hospital, and then the boys travelled to Perth on Wednesday. I got to stay an extra night to make sure they were home and settled before I took off on Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe club was great, it was a special time, and it\u2019s good to be back at home now so I can help out.\u201d<\/p>\n