The Roosters won a highly entertaining game of football at Allianz Stadium on Friday night, downing the Bulldogs 38-28.
It was in the Roosters favour early when Mitchell Pearce put in a grubber kick that was pounced on by Daniel Tupou within five minutes of kick off. The opening minutes were impressive from Pearce, throwing crisp passes and looking sharp.
The Roosters couldn’t ask for any better in the opening stanza, when Roger Tuivasa-Sheck took perfect advantage of a penalty, to step and sprint his way over the line for the second try of the night.
An onslaught was looking likely when only minutes later it would be Tupou to leap high and plant down the bomb by James Maloney to make it 16-0 within the opening fifteen minutes.
Michael Jennings would help them keep the ball rolling when he finished off some beautiful work by the Roosters, with plenty of passes hitting the mark. Maloney would break the line and pass inside to Jennings for his first try of the night.
It looked to be all the Roosters in a dominant start to the half, but the Bulldogs would find some points, scoring back-to-back tries on the left edge through Shaun Lane off a kick, and Josh Morris who barged his way over through some unaware defence.
Right on the break, Corey Thompson got it down on the edge in a freakish effort to pull the Bulldogs right back into the game, making it a tight 22-16 score line at the half time.
Brendan Elliot looked certain to score to open the second half, only to be ruled out for a double movement. Only minutes later and it was Trent Hodkinson that would split the line and score for the Bulldogs to tie this one up.
Only minutes later and the Bulldogs would go in again through Corey Thompson who got a wide ball to score untouched.
Behind by six and under the pump, the Roosters needed a big play to get back into it. On this occasion, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves led the way with an enormous run to put his side on the front foot, barging through the defence to be stopped just short of the goal line. The ball was pushed wide and it was the Blake Ferguson that put it down just inside of touch.
After a missed conversion kept them behind on the scoreboard, there was plenty more to do in this one if two competition points were what the boys were walking out with.
On his 200th NRL game, Mitchell Pearce put up a fantastic kick that was collected by Jennings in goal for a memorable try.
The game was officially over in the final minute when the Bulldogs fumbled the ball, Jackson Hastings collected and went over for his first career try in what was a memorable battle at home for the Roosters.
