ACL tears hobble Roosters duo as Manu masterclass in Dragons demolition snaps losing streak

Joey Manu has powered the Roosters to a vital victory over St George Illawarra, downing their finals rivals 54-26 on the Central Coast and ending their four game losing streak in the process.

The Roosters’ win was tarnished by Billy Smith and Sitili Tuiponiua suffering suspected season-ending ACL tears. Veteran prop Siosiua Taukeiaho suffered a cheekbone injury while Jared Waerea-Hargreaves was again a late withdrawal as he battles to return from an ongoing hamstring problem.

“I think they are both ACLs. Billy did his quite early on in a tackle, felt it, mentioned it to the physio and then on the [Lomax] try it gave way there and Sitili’s was quite obvious in the way that it went,” Roosters coach Trent Robinson said.

Manu scored a hat-trick, laid on three more and ran over 100m from five eighth in a man of the match performance that underscored his advantage to the Chooks as a half.

Sam Walker endured some of his now standard defensive issues but was excellent in attack, freed by Manu’s presence to scheme and kick the Dragons to pieces.

The Dragons more than played their part. Though they were blown away in the second half, they were by far the better team in the first and should have gone to the break more than two points ahead.

Ben Hunt continued his excellent Origin form with an individual try and a key assist for Zac Lomax, while Cody Ramsey cemented his hold on the fullback jersey with by also scoring one and creating another.

This was far from a 50-point defensive performance. When the Roosters get on a roll they have attacking threats across the park, and late on, a demoralised Dragons team could not cope.

Their chances took a huge hit when Aaron Woods was binned for a professional foul on Walker, with the Roosters running in three tries with the man advantage.

“I’m really lucky to coach guys like ‘Teddy’ (fullback James Tedesco) and Joey,” said Robinson.

“You don’t have to coach them much at all. They know the game better than you. You have to create an environment so they can perform, that’ll all our job is.”

The Roosters started slowly, with several errors early on. The Dragons were dominating field position, if not possession, but none of this matters when you have Joey Manu.

With little on, the auxiliary five eighth stepped one, spun another and then flicked a no look pass for Victor Radley to race away to the sticks.

Soon after, he went one better. After Moses Suli had made a meal of a kick and gifted a repeat set, the Dragons defence was exposed by Manu for a pushover try.

The Dragons might have been aggrieved to be twelve down while having had more than a fair split of the game, and would eventually get their reward.

Given his performance on Wednesday night in Origin, it was perhaps no surprise that Hunt provided the spark, with the halfback stepping against the slide and jinking his way over the line.

Hunt was purring. He punted a monster 40/20 – even bigger than his Origin effort – on the set after points and returned the Dragons to good ball, where he then provided the assist for Lomax to put Billy Smith on his backside and score.

The Roosters were having a nightmare. Walker threw a horrendous pass to Radley, who could not hold it around his ankles, and from the scrum, they were caught offside.

With the penalty straight in front, Lomax took the two and gave St George Illawarra a 14-12 lead going into the break.

Given that they had completed north of 90% and had 25 tackles in the Roosters’ 20 against just three in their own, it was hard to argue with their advantage.

Trent Robinson’s men had to be better in the second half. They got the perfect start, with Connor Watson taking advantage of some slack central defence to scoot behind the sticks.

The middle tackling was increasingly poor. The Chooks went 100m in one set, rolling straight down main street, before Walker was impeded in an attempt to retrieve his own kick under the posts.

Woods was the culprit and found himself in the bin, while Walker took the easy two to extend the lead to a converted try.

“It’s a big play to put someone in the bin. I didn’t even think it was a penalty, you’re allowed to jostle on a kick,” Dragons coach Anthony Griffin said.

(Photo by Scott Gardiner/Getty Images)

“But that’s not the reason we lost … we just weren’t strong enough defensively.”

Given the way that the game had swung, it was not surprising that they would score next, despite the man disadvantage. Cody Ramsey isolated Walker, went around him and fed the ball to Max Feagai. Lomax goaled from the sideline and it was level pegging again.

Of course, in such a topsy-turvy game, the parity could not last. Angus Crichton went very close but was hauled down by Junior Amone. From dummy half again, Manu could simply push his way over for his hat trick.

The Roosters were taking maximum advantage of their numerical superiority. Walker skipped through a few to score the next, before James Tedesco got another off the back of a piece of Manu sleight of hand.

The scoring was not done. With the Roosters still going for more, their last tackle play fell to Matt Lodge, who tried to keep the play alive but instead passed straight to Ramsey, who ran the length.

Naturally, the Roosters struck straight back. It came from one of their favourite routes to the line: Walker sent up a high hanging kick, Joseph Suaalii came down with it and spun to score.

There was time for more Manu magic. He split the defence down the middle, broke through and kicked for Paul Momirovski to touch down.

It was the last involvement for the Kiwi, but there was time for Tedesco to add another and bring up the half century in the final moments.