St George Illawarra Dragons v Roosters: Cooked Chooks fail to fire as rampant Red V roll on
NRL Premiership
Ben Hunt of the Dragons celebrates with Gareth Widdop after scoring a try.Source: AAP
SOMETHING will need to change if the Roosters are to compete for the NRL premiership at the back end of 2018.
A pre-season title favourite, the Chooks have won just four of their opening eight games and are slipping in and out of the top eight on the ladder.
They struggled to fire a shot against a tough, gritty St George Illawarra outfit in their annual Anzac Day blockbuster at Allianz Stadium on Wednesday.
The Roosters scored just one try as they lost the game 24-8 to the high-flying Dragons.
The arrival of superstar signings Cooper Cronk and James Tedesco was meant to turn the Bondi boys into an unstoppable force, but they are yet to find their groove with the new-look spine.
In the first half of Wednesday’s game they had to revert to a penalty conversion to find their first points when they failed to capitalise on a heap of possession inside their attacking 20 metres.
Sims dominates Cronk
0:48
The steeled Red V defensive line proved impenetrable for much of the game and the Roosters could only score one four-pointer in what was another underwhelming display by the club.
“Their attack has struggled, dreadfully,” Fox Sports commentator Michael Ennis noted of the Roosters towards the end of the game.
For the Dragons, it was the perfect way to bounce back from last week’s loss to the Warriors.
Tariq Sims put his hand up high for an Origin debut as he terrorised Cronk all night, while Ben Hunt and Gareth Widdop laid the platform for the victory.
They’ll retain their spot at the top of the ladder for at least another week.
It took barely a minute for St George Illawarra to hit the scoreboard, with emotion running high following the Last Post and national anthems.
Ben Hunt chose to run it on the last play of the first set, then handed to Gareth Widdop who kicked for winger Nene Macdonald to pounce and score a stunner in the corner.
Widdop’s sideline conversion made it 6-0 before the Roosters had touched the ball.
The game then went into an arm wrestle as both sides struggled to find the line.
The Chooks had a heap of ball inside their attacking half but a steeled Red V defence managed to keep the opposition out.
Crowd honours Last Post
2:04
Roosters eventually resorted to kicking a penalty just to get some points on the board.
It wasn’t until 30 seconds before half time that the next try came, and again it was to the Red V.
Ben Hunt skipped through the defence and scored to give the Dragons a 12-2 lead at the break.
The Dragons came out of the sheds roaring.
Tariq Sims levelled Cooper Cronk with a brutal tackle and then he ran over Cronk at the other end of the field to score a try and extend the Red V lead.
But the Roosters finally found their fire when they score their first try a couple of minutes later through Latrell Mitchell.
Mitchell converted his own try and it was 18-8.
But Macdonald scored his second in the 69th minute to put the icing on the win.
The try was contentious and it looked like Macdonald had spilt the ball over the line, but the bunker flipped a coin and awarded the try to take any hope away from the Chooks.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nr...s/news-story/11537f9759dec14f25a50286d73d7895
