The Sydney Roosters took everything but two competition points out of their daunting road trip to Melbourne on Saturday, but halfback Mitchell Pearce says tough lessons learned from an uncharacteristic late fade-out should realign the club's premiership charge.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Luke Keary's second-half field goal had the Roosters headed for a one-point win over the likely minor premiers, before their defensive line was finally breached by Joe Stimson just four minutes from time to hand the Bondi club a second-straight loss.
That ended their tilt at the minor premiership, and also might prove a telling blow in the race for second spot with Brisbane, ahead of Saturday's clash with the plucky Wests Tigers at Allianz Stadium.
Yet the Roosters' brave performance was laced with positives in arguably their strongest defensive performance of 2017.
Suliasi Vunivalu also managed a four-pointer for the Storm, but that came via a penalty try after Latrell Mitchell was adjudged to have denied him a genuine opportunity to score. Roosters coach Trent Robinson thought there was too much doubt to award a penalty try.
"The best thing was we held them out in defence and we held on for most of the game," Pearce said.
"We're confident in the team. It was good for the belief for the whole team, especially defensively. It was a good game of footy but we fell short, we just missed that last little bit there."
"We're still developing, still moving forward as a team. We still feel like we can grow big time over the next six weeks and we're going to have to.
"First and foremost we want to get that top-four spot, that's the No.1 goal. It starts this week against the Tigers who are in some pretty good form."
Fullback Michael Gordon is close to returning from a pectoral injury, although dislodging Connor Watson from the No.1 jersey could prove difficult after his strong showing against the Storm.
Pearce said Watson was his side's best player on the weekend, and was particularly impressed with his ability to diffuse Cameron Smith's dangerous kicking game.
The third-placed Roosters play a blockbuster against Cronulla next weekend before hosting the Gold Coast Titans to round out their regular season, but Pearce said their focus would be solely on the Tigers this week following the joint venture's late win over Manly at Leichardt on Sunday.
"They're a team that hasn't got much to lose, they're going to be on holidays in three weeks, they've got some really quality players in their team that can come up if you're not on your game," Pearce said.
"The biggest thing for us, we need to maintain the steeliness that we played with on the weekend for the next three weeks to go into the finals, we can't be dropping our guard in any way."
