The Sydney Roosters erased the bad memories of Round 1 as they proved to be too good for the Bulldogs, prevailing 30-12 at Allianz Stadium.
MATCH DETAILS
The Roosters were dominant in the first half, going into half-time with an 18-0 lead. Luke Keary didn’t take long to make an impact in his return game, crossing for a length of the field try after Tedesco surged off their goal-line from a wayward Dogs kick and gave the ball away to Keary in space. A fortunate loose ball that went backwards led to a try for Blake Ferguson minutes later.
A sin-binning in the 20th minute hardly affected the Roosters and 3 minutes before half-time Keary returned the favour to Tedesco, giving him an inside ball to cross for a try.
A dummy and line-break from Matt Frawley produced a Josh Morris try to open up the scoring in the second half. The comeback attempt proved to be short lived as the new star duo of Tedesco and Cronk combined to send the No.7 over for his first Roosters try.
A soft try to Josh Jackson gave the Bulldogs a glimmer of hope but the Roosters held strong and capped off the game with a try to Ryan Matterson 5 minutes from full time.
FOUR POINTERS
Million Dollar Men deliver
After a quiet day out against his former club, James Tedesco came to life against the Bulldogs. He scored a try and provided two try assists with the aforementioned assist to Cronk producing a try worth $2 million dollars.
Cronk’s game management was as superb as always as the team looked far more comfortable playing to his style than what they did last week.
Dogs in trouble with 0-2 start
While there were a lot of promising signs against the Storm last week it mattered for little, as for the second consecutive round the Dogs were whooped by 18 points.
The Dogs looked bereft of attacking ideas even as the Roosters went a man down after Isaac Liu was sent to the sin bin. Star signing Aaron Woods went missing against a determined Roosters pack and Kieran Foran lacked impact in attack. Michael Lichaa’s running game proved to be strong although the fact that after 60 minutes he had ran for more metres than most of his forwards is a worrying sign.
It’s early days yet but Dean Pay is going to have to hope things start clicking soon before the season starts to take a rapid downward spiral.
Tupou facing lengthy stint on the sidelines
The Roosters depth is already going to be put to the test as Daniel Tupou went down with what is suspected to be a torn pectoral injury which is set to put him out of commission for 10-14 weeks. While the Roosters have an experienced back-up option in Reece Robinson available, they’ll have to hope their backline suffers no further disruptions while Tupou is out.
Cordner has an absolute shocker
Australian back-rower and current NSW captain Boyd Cordner had one of the worst games he may have ever played against the Bulldogs. Even Andrew Fifita would have been shaking his head in disapproval at the quality of Cordner’s play the balls as he was penalised twice for failing to play it correctly. ย A few handling errors and poor marker defence letting Jackson stroll over for a try meant Cordner was doing anything but leading by example.
Nearly everyone has an awful day at the office from time to time so it shouldn’t be a recurring problem. However Cordner should hope that he’s got his worst game of the season out of the way lest he proves unable to perform in a high stakes, high pressure match.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
”It’s becoming frustrating that’s for sure.ย We have some new players at the club, some new structures we’re working on, and in the end it is going to take time but we want to make sure we’re putting in performances we’re happy with each weekend as well. We certainly need to be better.” – Bulldogs coach Dean Pay on the frustration of overhauling the Dogs attack
”Two weeks in a row we’ve had more than 30 points put on us, and as a group, that’s something that is very disappointing, and we want to be better at that.” – Bulldogs Captain Josh Jackson
“We simplified it from the week before, we were pretty bad the week before. We didn’t play that Roosters style of footy and we just simplified what we had to do.” – Roosters 5/8 Luke Keary
THE RESULT
Sydney Roosters- 30
Tries:ย Luke Keary (11m), Blake Ferguson (16m), James Tedesco (37m), Cooper Cronk (53m), Ryan Matterson (75m)
Goals:ย Latrell Mitchell 5/7
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs- 12
Tries:ย Josh Morris (48m), Josh Jackson (61m)
Goals: Moses Mbye 2/2
