Roosters are vulnerable
A week ago the Roosters were talked about as premiership favourites. How quickly things can change in the NRL.
Source:http://sportal.com.au/default.aspx/league-news-display/roosters-are-vulnerable-96689
Roosters are vulnerable
14/08/2010 12:55 PM
John Greco
A week ago the Roosters were talked about as premiership favourites on the back five straight wins and an attacking style that was blowing away all their rivals.
How quickly things can change in the NRL.
But a narrow loss to the Dragons last Sunday followed by Friday night's shock 18-12 defeat to the lowly Sharks has raised serious questions about their title credentials.
They are suddenly no longer certainties for a top-four spot and with a tough clash with the in-form Gold Coast Titans up next on Monday week.
"We are vulnerable, that's where we are right now and we need to regroup fast," Roosters coach Brian Smith admitted after the Sharks loss.
"We have a Monday night game at home next week and that gives us a long turnaround and we need every day of it, that's for sure."
"On a couple of occasions we were in a rush to do things, when we needed to do things calmly."
"They scrapped and scrambled and did all the things they as do well and instead of us understanding that we tried to blow them away by 20 or 30.
"We needed to be more patient and respectful of the rules that were in place tonight....it was a real dogfight."
And it was a fight the Roosters clearly struggled to handle with Smith admitting the inexperience of a lot of his squad worked against them against Cronulla.
"We just looked excitable from the start," he said.
"Every time something half happened we tried to finish it off and make it a try."
"A couple of times we had walk in tries but the execution of the play wasn’t tidy, it was too loose and frantic at times."
Roosters halfback Mitchell Pearce, who took some of the blame for his side's loss on his shoulders, said it was up to the players to respond to the mini-slump they are in.
"It's a matter now of how good we want to be and how good we are, we need show that the next few weeks," he said.
"We've got to get a balance in our game."
"We had a run where things opened up for attack but going into the finals teams defend a lot better and we've got to get into a grind more and play a bit more composed."
"It comes down to myself, I've got to get the balance where we're still taking our chances but just playing more composed."
Fullback Anthony Minichiello added: "We had heaps of opportunities to score some points or just get an extra set and we would fumbled the ball or went for the last pass when we should have held it."
"We just didn't set things up right in the first half, we tried to score off every set of six and in the end we dropped way to much ball."
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