Say Cheese! Rooster booster Brandon ready to rumble

The Roosters are ready to unleash a pumped up and trimmed down Brandon Smith on his old team Melbourne on Saturday as they look to mount their finals charge.

Sidelined by a fractured thumb since Round 12, Smith made an impressive return for the Roosters’ NSW Cup side on Sunday and is champing at the bit to take on the Storm.

With the disruptive Origin period and their three byes behind them, the perennial finalists know the time has come to string some wins together, starting with old foes Melbourne at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

The Roosters have lost three of five in Smith’s absence and five-eighth Luke Keary says the 27-year-old hooker’s return can’t some soon enough for Trent Robinson’s men.

“Brandon has been working hard, he looks in really good condition,” Keary said.

“He’s lost five kilos, he’s eating really well and training really well.

“I think he just wanted to trim down a little bit. At Melbourne he was playing lock and hooker so he had the bigger frame but here he’s our No.9.

“He’s worked really hard on his fitness the last couple of months so I gather he’d be wanting to play a few more minutes for us, especially at the back end of the season.”

 Another man looking to crank up his game time will be halfback Sam Walker, who played the first six matches of the season before he was dropped to NSW Cup and then suffered an ACL sprain.

The 21-year-old is on the verge of a comeback after a minor setback last weekend prevented him from joining Smith in Sunday’s clash with Newcastle at Wentworth Park.

“They’re being really cautious with him, being young and the way he moves on the footy field,” Keary said.

“He’s a really good kid, he’s really quiet. He played a couple of games there in reserve grade and then got injured straight away so he’s basically been in rehab with Brandon and a few good boys around him.

“He’s unflappable, he doesn’t get rattled often so you wouldn’t even notice if it was worrying him.

“Ninety per cent of us halves get put back at some stage to the bench or reserve grade as a young kid, it just happens.

“I think Johnathan Thurston said it happened to him, Cooper [Cronk], I went back, it hurts at the time but the confidence in him from myself and the club and the players has never wavered.

“You see Thurston and blokes like that they all went through it but no one talks about it now because they came through it.

“It would have stung them at the time but those great players they come out the other end.”

Coming off a gutsy two-point loss to Manly where plenty of close calls went against them, the Roosters are out to avenge a 28-8 loss to the Storm in Round 6 before a Queensland swing that pits them against the Titans at Cbus Super Stadium and the Broncos at The Gabba in consecutive weeks.

Just a game outside the top eight but burdened by a poor points differential of -92, Keary knows they'll need a similar charge to last year's eight in a row to round out regular season.

"We're not in the spot where we want to be, we haven’t played the way we want to play but there's still a long way to go for us," Keary said.

"We understand that from last year - we just need to get going.

"It's always a bit like this in Origin time with the byes and boys going in and out, but with Brandon back and hopefully Sammy’s back soon too, as well as Teddy [James Tedesco] and Lindsay [Collins] back full-time after this week, we can get some momentum."