Southlander's key role in Roosters' push for NRL premiership
“To be honest I’ve been on a very steep learning curve about NRL footy and what it is all about.”
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Powerhouse NRL club the Sydney Roosters will head into the 2024 final series with a significant Southland connection.
Southland’s Simon Jones is in his first season as the head of performance at the Roosters after being recruited by the NRL club late last year.
Jones joined The Roar Podcast for an extensive interview where he talked through his journey from Invercargill to the Roosters and is introduction to the NRL.
The former Southland Boys’ High School pupil started his career in a strength and conditioning environment working with netball and rugby in his home province.
Jones moved on to work for the Highlanders and High Performance New Zealand in Dunedin before spending three years with Japan’s national rugby team as its head of performance.
In 2020 he returned to Dunedin to link with the Highlanders as its head of athletic performance. Jones was content in the role and wasn’t planning to leave.
However, that changed when he got an unexpected approach about joining the Roosters late last year.
That head of performance position is an important one at the high-profile club.
He told The Roar Podcast it was the breadth of the job that piqued his interest when he was approached.
“I sit across the medical team, strength and conditioning coaches, sports scientists, and dietitians, so the role is to facilitate that and align them as close to the footy programme as I can.
“Another reason I came [to the Roosters] was my conversations with Robbo - Trent Robinson - who is the head coach. So, I’m really enjoying forging that partnership.
“To be honest I’ve been on a very steep learning curve about NRL footy and what it is all about.”
Jones - a former junior sprinting star in New Zealand - made an immediate impression at the Roosters when he took charge of the preseason build up to the 2024 season.
Included those that offered up praise was one of the sport’s highest-profile stars in Roosters fullback James Tedesco.
"We had a new trainer come in... usually some of the older guys would not do most of the session or get pulled out of different things to look after us.
"But this pre-season we all did everything, there wasn't any leeway there,” Tedesco told media in March about Jones’ introduction to the Roosters.
Jones acknowledged it was a tough preseason but was impressed with how the players responded.
“Luke Keary has been joking that I’ve retired him from the NRL,” Jones said when talking about that hard preseason work.
“But it was an enjoyable preseason, the guys have got a real resiliency to a high workload… The volume they are prepared to do, the wrestle that they do is like an hour at a time which is near game intensity heart rate.”
In terms of oval ball sporting competitions, the NRL is a bit of a marathon. It starts in March and finishes in September with little downtime in between.
State of Origin is also chucked in for some players.
A key part of Jones’ role is to manage the workload to ensure the players are still firing come the crunch stage of the season.
With two rounds to play in the regular season, the Roosters sit second in the competition standings and are regarded a genuine 2024 NRL Premiership contender.
As a club, the Roosters have high expectations, and Jones was well aware of that when he joined them ahead of the 2024 season.
“It’s been interesting because their hashtag for a lot of their social media is #wewinpremierships, but if they were honest with themselves, they haven’t won one [since 2019], and last year they finished seven.
“Kudos to the club, they said they are people that look to be courageous and ambitious, and they’ve fished out a guy from rugby union in Dunedin to give them a fresh set of eyes.”