{"id":946373,"date":"2026-10-30T12:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T12:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/946373\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T12:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T12:40:14","slug":"nrl-news-2026-sydney-roosters-coach-trent-robinson-fires-up-sam-walker-character-assessment-comments-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/946373\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson fires up Sam Walker \u2018character assessment\u2019 comments; reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roosters<\/a> coach Trent Robinson<\/a> has launched a passionate defence of Sam Walker<\/a> following confirmation he would leave the club<\/a> by the end of 2027.<\/p>\n

On commentary duties for Seven\u2019s coverage of the Rugby League World Cup<\/a>, Robinson said he was disappointed the club hadn\u2019t held on to its star half, but insisted neither party had done anything wrong and there was no bad blood between the two of them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Trent Robinson and Sam Walker embrace after the grand final.\u00a0NRL Imagery<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Monday you have the negotiations<\/a>, you think it\u2019s going to go one way, and it doesn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

“We wanted to sign Sam, we couldn\u2019t get it done and that\u2019s the business side of it.<\/p>\n

“Then from Tuesday onwards it\u2019s been a bit frustrating around the commentary around Sam and the way his character is and what he should have done.<\/p>\n

“No one\u2019s on a lifelong contract. He\u2019s signed until the end of next year. He\u2019s a great guy. He\u2019s really personable, everyone loves him, and he just didn\u2019t want to sign for 2028. So it\u2019s pretty simple, and we\u2019ve moved on.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s the business part, but I didn\u2019t really like the character assessment of everybody during the week.”<\/p>\n

After the deal collapsed, Walker personally phoned Roosters chairman Nick Politis on Wednesday night to explain his position. Fans were furious Walker himself hadn\u2019t been the one to tell the club he was backing out of the deal on Monday.<\/p>\n

Robinson pointed out that was the exact purpose of managers, and they had never directly talked about contracts themselves.<\/p>\n

“There was constant communication there, we couldn\u2019t get it done, so that\u2019s pretty normal,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Sam and I don\u2019t talk about contracts. We never have. It\u2019s never been a part of our discussion. We talk about footy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a time when we\u2019re going to chat. We\u2019ve been close for a long time \u2013 I\u2019ve had him since he was a kid, so be it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s the thing, the commentary around all of that was just a bit too much for me. No one\u2019s done anything wrong, no one\u2019s a bad person in this, he didn\u2019t want to sign, we wanted to sign him, and we couldn\u2019t get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Robinson has denied reports the grand final was Walker\u2019s last match for the Roosters.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

When Walker\u2019s camp on Monday night asked for an extra $100,000 a year, they also offered a fresh deadline of midday Tuesday, before Politis scrapped the deal altogether.<\/p>\n

Robinson was then asked if the Roosters had given Walker enough time to consider the deal.<\/p>\n

“I think Sam did want more time, but don\u2019t forget we started negotiations in the middle of the year, and they pushed it back to after the season. We\u2019re after the season, and November 1 is coming, and Sam was our biggest contract.<\/p>\n

“A lot of dominoes have to fall after that, and other players need to know as well. It was pretty clear in the timeline that we gave him and the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said before, these deals aren\u2019t difficult. We\u2019re not talking about is this the right club, am I going to develop in this club as a young player. It\u2019s, \u2018Do I want to be here and is the money right?\u2019 And we couldn\u2019t get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has also been suggestions Walker\u2019s position at the club is untenable, and the grand final triumph was his final game in the Tricolours.<\/p>\n

But Robinson said that was not the case.<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s contracted next year. He\u2019s at the Roosters, he is just not there from ’28 onwards,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would\u2019ve thought his manager has had lots of calls in the last few days \u2026 but Sammy\u2019s a Rooster until the end of 2027 and then he\u2019s off from \u201928, and that\u2019s his decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said there was no chance a deal could be done that would extend his Roosters career beyond next season.<\/p>\n

“No. Nick has made that pretty clear,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We were pretty clear in those negotiations. We knew what we wanted, and no, it’s done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe negotiations are done, Sam\u2019s moved on, and we\u2019ve moved on, so there\u2019s no way to get a deal done after this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roosters coach Trent Robinson has launched a passionate defence of Sam Walker following confirmation he would leave the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-946373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946373","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=946373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}