The Roosters admonished a section of fans for posting “death threats” towards players on social media following the Roosters 42-18 loss to the Warriors at Go Media Stadium.
It was a scrappy performance by the Tri-Colours in their first game with Daly Cherry-Evans at halfback and fans weren’t shy in expressing their displeasure about his lack of impact.
Angry fans online called for the return of Hugo Savala, who was dumped from the halves in favour of the former Maroons half.
The club warned some supporters that their commentary “will not be tolerated.”
In the comments section of a score graphic posted by the Roosters’ official Instagram page, the page’s administrator wrote a message in response to several negative comments about the performance from fans.
“While we appreciate the love and the passion that comes with sport we will not tolerate death threats towards our players,” the message wrote.
“Rugby League is a game that we all love and at the end of the day don’t let it ruin your day. Peace and Love,” the post read.
It’s understood the NRL is looking into the matter.
After the game Trent Robinson did not hide from the fact his side had misfired on Friday night, but also labelled the lopsided penalty count “incredible”.
Overall, the Roosters finished with 13 errors and the penalty count was 11-4 to the Warriors at the end of 80 minutes.
Last season, the Roosters sat first for errors and handling errors in the competition and seventh for penalties conceded.
And it’s clear discipline is still an issue, Robinson told reporters post-match, however, the officiating also stood out in his mind.
“Things will go against you,” he said.
“I think 11-2. The opposition apply a lot of pressure. It depends on the referee about how they determine those and 11-2 is quite incredible in our game.
“Then we had video ref decisions and all of that. But as I go back to, depending on what team you want to be, is how much of a swing against you do you let in that many points for us?
“And I’m okay. I think we’ll execute the attack. I’m not worried about missing that execution.
“It would have been nice to get that back. But we want to be a team that you can have 11-2 against.
“You can have decisions go against you, and then you can put your gloves up and say, it’s cool.
James Tedesco speaks to referee Wyatt Raymond. Â NRL Imagery
“We might be a few points down, but we can hold on to that no matter how far it swings. Round 1 we’re not able to do that. Round two. We’ll see.”
In addition to the penalty count, Roosters skipper James Tedesco expressed disappointment over his side’s defence late.
“I mean, we had a lot of calls against, with the penalty count and a couple of tries, and then a couple of their tries as well, so it was disappointing,” Tedesco said.
“But we still let in that many points and we can’t be doing that, so that’s disappointing, especially that last 10 minutes to let in a couple of tries, when we were sort of fighting our way back and giving ourselves a chance.
“We had a couple of opportunities we didn’t execute, and then I thought it wasn’t a great end performance.
“I feel like there was some positives throughout the game in patches, but it’s disappointing to put all that work in pre-season and come over and let in that many points.”
