{"id":896814,"date":"2026-09-18T18:08:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T18:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896814\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T18:08:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T18:08:18","slug":"nrl-trent-robinson-and-craig-fitzgibbon-put-friendship-to-the-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896814\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL: Trent Robinson and Craig Fitzgibbon put friendship to the side"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trent Robinson won three premierships at the Roosters with Craig Fitzgibbon in his coaching crew, but he says there\u2019s no time for sentiment this week as the close friends fight for a place in the preliminary final.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s showdown to face the Dolphins in a grand final qualifier.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter, to be honest,\u201d Robinson said, with Saturday\u2019s clash to be his third finals game coaching against Fitzgibbon. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt 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\u2019s our role, so all of that gets put aside. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf that emotion creeps in, then you know you\u2019re not built for the role, so you go about your business and you\u2019re purely focused on what the Roosters need to do for this week. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll always be there for us, but this week it\u2019s not about us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had 10 years working with Trent, so it was definitely a long apprenticeship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had plenty of lessons and am forever grateful for my time there and his mentoring of me to be a coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always supportive of me and backed me to take the opportunity when that came, so I\u2019ll be forever grateful for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week is about Sharks v Roosters. While we talk regularly, we\u2019re not talking this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a close group from a friendship point of view,\u201d Robinson said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know there\u2019s a shared care and love for each other in all of that, but it\u2019s footy. No one cares about that outside of our personal relationships, so it\u2019s about Saturday night. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor Justo, it\u2019s about Sunday for him, and it\u2019s about who\u2019s going to play and we\u2019ve got roles to play. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur 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\u2019s our role, so the stories around it are nice but it doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s about us. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t wait to watch our guys play and my role is to support them in doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published as \u2018We\u2019re not talking\u2019: Craig Fitzgibbon and Trent Robinson won three titles together, but they won\u2019t be friends this week<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trent Robinson won three premierships at the Roosters with Craig Fitzgibbon in his coaching crew, but he says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[387589,395498,365771,399389,419400,465752,386792,431933,465742,377506,413649,381975,379284,465761,387445,465751,391362,387760,64,63,3181,1650,4738,465756,26958,379391,16308,444112,465737,9116,465748,9371,117865,465758,465738,465747,465746,465759,465757,465736,1877,8280,459218,381011,761,762,35062,465754,377271,381895,158,380172,465755,465739,428720,46677,9747,135551,9120,46907,121353,1042,18199,85,8825,465749,465745,465743,465740,465760,382205,379248,54179,377514,401886,87494,378658,377421,380184,380430,376757,460256,465744,376555,174850,411771,382535,380496,386801,381772,465741,410274,199184,392799,446623,465753,6618,101204,4737,26847,465750],"class_list":["post-896814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-s-clash","tag-s-showdown","tag-10-years","tag-399389","tag-2022-he","tag-a-close-group","tag-a-coach","tag-a-competition","tag-a-friendship-point","tag-a-grand-final-qualifier","tag-a-long-apprenticeship","tag-a-place","tag-a-player","tag-a-shared-care-and-love","tag-a-team","tag-a-very-different-coach","tag-all-five","tag-an-assistant-coach","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-coach","tag-coaches","tag-craig-fitzgibbon","tag-craig-fitzgibbon-and-trent-robinson","tag-cronulla","tag-each-other","tag-finals","tag-fitzgibbon","tag-foes","tag-footy","tag-former-roosters-assistants","tag-friends","tag-friendships","tag-his-coaching-crew","tag-his-former-mentor","tag-his-mentoring","tag-his-seasons","tag-his-third-finals-game-coaching","tag-justo","tag-knights-boss-justin-holbrook-one","tag-lessons","tag-life","tag-my-role","tag-my-time","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-night","tag-no-correspondence","tag-no-one","tag-no-time","tag-nrl","tag-one-week","tag-our-guys-play","tag-our-personal-relationships","tag-our-role","tag-plenty","tag-robinson","tag-roles","tag-roosters","tag-saturday","tag-sentiment","tag-sharks","tag-sharks-v-roosters","tag-sports","tag-sunday","tag-that-emotion","tag-that-outside","tag-the-best-stories","tag-the-best-support","tag-the-close-friends-fight","tag-the-club","tag-the-clubs","tag-the-dolphins","tag-the-finals","tag-the-helm","tag-the-line","tag-the-man","tag-the-move","tag-the-nrl","tag-the-opportunity","tag-the-pair","tag-the-preliminary-final","tag-the-robinson-coaching-tree","tag-the-role","tag-the-roosters","tag-the-second-week","tag-the-stories","tag-the-winner","tag-the-wooden-spoon","tag-the-work","tag-their-best-game","tag-this-period","tag-this-week","tag-those-players","tag-three-premierships","tag-three-titles","tag-time","tag-trent","tag-trent-robinson","tag-view","tag-your-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}