Sydney Roosters coach Brian Smith has revealed a series of individual meetings and promoting positive thinking is helping ease the mental scars his young players were left with following an horrific 2009 NRL season.

Dogged by problems off the field last year, the Roosters were not much better on it, winning just five times as they claimed the wooden spoon for the first time since 1966.

And although the veteran former Parramatta and Newcastle coach stopped short of predicting he will emulate Jack Gibson's achievement of guiding the Roosters to the semi-finals, a year after finishing last, he is confident good times are ahead.

"We've got some work done, worked a few things out and created an environment that is enjoyable to work in and that we all enjoy," Smith told AAP.

"There probably was some mental scarring but I dealt with that pretty early on and had a number of individual meetings with the guys and gave them the chance to say what was on their mind and turned it around to get them to look forward."

With the club's coaching staff completely overhauled in the off-season after Brad Fittler's contract wasn't renewed, Smith said he had been happy with the squad's response to his methods.

"There has been no discussion about how it used to be or what happened the year before even with my own career," he said.

"When we started out, the players and the staff, we had 131 days until the season began and the goal was not to waste one of them. Look forward, not back and make every day a productive day.

"We have had one day where we were down on production where we were pretty ordinary but I reckon every other day, we have been good."

The Roosters' pre-season progress has been hindered by the injury to dynamic New Zealand forward Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, who will miss the first month of the season with a dislocated shoulder he sustained in training after signing from Manly.

"We have had a little disruption along the way, losing Waerea-Hargreaves and also Boyd Cordner for the season with an ACL injury and those days have been hard," Smith said.

"We have high hopes for Boyd and it is a real blow for him and us, but we will move on and I guess we will start to find out soon how productive we have been very soon,

"But I am confident this team can take us forward and the future here is an exciting one."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP