Kiwi Sam Perrett let his team-mates know what he thought of some of them.
He wasn't exactly angry the club was being dragged through the mire, yet again. It was mainly disappointment. It's a common emotion in 2009.
The Roosters have lurched from one off-field controversy to the next and Perrett has been trying to understand why some of his team-mates constantly put themselves in danger of being dragged into compromising situations.
The club's annus horribilis started with Jake Friend's charge for drink-driving, moved onto Willie Mason and Nate Myles's temporary axing for drinking on a non-sanctioned day, took in coach Brad Fittler's drunken meltdown in Townsville when he knocked on the hotel door of a stranger dressed in only his shorts (he fined himself $10,000), continued with the police detention of Mitchell Pearce, Sandor Earl and Friend after a fight in a nightclub and was rounded off by Myles defecating in a hotel corridor.
It hasn't helped that the Roosters have been rooted to the bottom of the table with only four wins all season.
"The off-field stuff has been more disappointing [than our results on the field] ... and I have told the boys how I feel about things," Perrett says. "I've said they should take it easy on the drink over the next few weeks and, if they can, avoid it all together. That's just my opinion."
It's an opinion shaped by Perrett's approach to life.
You won't catch the 24-year-old Christian down at the Cross on a Saturday night and he can still be found delving into Maxwell Maltz's 1960s work Psycho-Cybernetics, a self-help manual which asserts that by rebuilding your self-image you can bring success. He plans to hand it on to team-mate Anthony Cherrington this week but maybe it should be required text for the entire squad.
"I don't drink or smoke," he says.
"I don't enjoy the club or party scene. I just love to be at home with my family. [All of the off-field incidents] just reassures me that the way I'm trying to live life is a good and healthy one. You don't have to worry about that sort of stuff. I truly believe when you're out in those environments you might be doing everything perfectly all right but something happens out of your control and it can land in your lap.
"There might be a fight going on and you've done absolutely nothing but somehow you get caught up in it. That's what happened lately at our club, like the incident with a few of our boys in the city who got caught up in a fight. A couple of boys were wrongly accused of throwing punches when neither did, but it all looked bad for them.
"If you're not there in the first place, you don't have to worry about it."
Perrett is convinced the Roosters' lowly position on the table and the numerous controversies go hand-in-hand. It's a vicious circle they have struggled, or refuse, to break.
"What's going on and how we are feeling as a team influences a little of the behaviour and the behaviour and the bad news off the field also influences our performance," he says. "They both affect each other.
"[Our results are] a combination of a lot of things. We're not playing the best team footy at the moment. We're not all on the same page. There's a little bit of confusion there."
That's why the Roosters are now $1.57 favourites for the wooden spoon after they started the season rated the seventh-most-likely team to win the premiership.
Last weekend Hugh McGahan, a former Roosters player and board member, said it would take a clear-out of players for the culture to change at the club. Instead, a change of coach is more likely with Kiwis coach Stephen Kearney linked with the position.
Few could point the finger at Perrett for under-performing. He has consistently been one of the Roosters' best and in the past four weeks has averaged 210m a game playing at fullback in a stuttering side.
"I am still enjoying myself," he says. "If you come off the field happy with your own work, that's how you enjoy yourself. That's what I have done most of the time."
Last week, the Herald on Sunday incorrectly said it was Andrew Johns who was involved in the Sharks' 2002 group sex controversy when it was Matthew Johns. We regret the error.
NRL: Sam ruffles a few feathers
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