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The Roosters kept their finals hopes alive while simultaneously ending Newcastle’s ambitions at McDonald Jones Stadium on Friday night.
With young winger Joseph Suaalii underlining his status as one of the best young prospects in the NRL and captain James Tedesco piling up more than 300 running metres from fullback, the visitors caused the Knights all manner of grief to run out 42-12 winners.
With Manly losing earlier in the night to the Dragons, the win means the Roosters have leapfrogged the Sea Eagles into eighth spot heading into the final six rounds.
“That’s a guy who is really clear about his form. But it’s quite strange to say form because he’s not on a purple patch,” Robinson said of Tedesco. “He’s been doing that for a long period of time.”
The Knights are now eight points adrift of the playoff equation.
“It’s been a tough, shitty season,” Knights coach Adam O’Brien said.
“It seems like I’m re-doing this press conference on loop at the moment for home games.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do to fix where we’re at as a group. And it’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of time unfortunately.”
Newcastle opened the scoring with a penalty goal but the Roosters registered the first try when Connor Watson made a break against his former team to gift Luke Keary a try in his comeback from a concussion layoff.
Jospeh Suaalii celebrates scoring a try. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
The Knights’ chances took a massive hit when skipper Kalyn Ponga was forced off after a head knock, failing his HIA for a third concussion-enforced layoff for the year.
Ponga looks set for at least another few weeks on the sidelines and the club could shut him down for the rest of the season now the playoffs are not in the equation.
“We’ll go through the process (head injury protocols) during the week because he’s had a couple,” O’Brien said.
“But I’m more concerned with how upset he is – he’s pretty emotional because he feels like he’s let everyone down.”
Second-rower Lachlan Fitzgibbon aggravated a shoulder injury which doesn’t look good, according to O’Brien.
They went further ahead when Edrick Lee nearly latched onto an intercept but the Roosters held onto the ball for Tedesco to put Suaalii over out wide.
Suaalii, still a couple of weeks shy of his 19th birthday, then turned provider for Tedesco with the skipper’s four-pointer giving the Tricolours a 16-2 buffer at the break.
When Daniel Tupou latched onto a Keary bomb eight minutes after the restart, the Roosters were up 22-2.
Suaalii scorched over in the right corner in the 55th minute to extend the lead by four.
Veteran ventre Dane Gagai was marched to the sin bin for abusing the referee which only made a bad situation worse for Newcastle.
Tedesco unfurled a superb around-the-corner pass for Tupout to plunge over out wide for a 32-2 advantage.
The scoreline became even more embarrassing for Newcastle 10 minutes out from the final siren when second-rower Angus Crichton made it 36-2 and when Tedesco split the hosts up the middle to lay on a try for Egan Butcher and a 40-point margin, it was downright humiliating.
Phoenix Crossland and Edrick Lee crossed for consolation tries but it did little to remove the misery of the final result.