The Roosters have beaten the Bulldogs in an Elimination Final on Friday night, booking themselves a spot at Suncorp Stadium for a Qualifying Final against the Broncos.
The Bulldogs opening defensive sets were intimidating, their second in particular keeping the Roosters inside 30 metres.
The Roosters were able to get on the front foot though, making good metres and getting within opposition territory.
They were gifted a penalty and James Maloney would take the two points from right in front.
It didn’t stop there, with the Roosters making plenty of ground in the set that followed.
A good kick by Jackson Hastings was tapped back by Blake Ferguson, and Shaun Kenny-Dowall was there to collect and put it down over the line.
It was looking like a tough match was in progress, and the Roosters were battling in the opening half with several try scoring opportunities being missed.
With that being the case, the Bulldogs would be the next to capitalise on the scoring front, after Tim Lafai ran a nice line to score the try and open the scoring for his side.
Though this was a physical clash, it was also a bit sloppy, with both sides making a fair share of errors in the opening half.
The second half opened with a few errors, but the Roosters were the ones to pull it together.
They scored back-to-back tries through Kane Evans in a barging effort, and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck after receiving an incredible offload from Evans to sprint his way to the chalk.
Much like the Bulldogs side we’ve become used to over recent years, they were far from done with in this one.
They hit back in the form of Damien Cook, after some nice razzle dazzle passing from the Bulldogs backline ended in the hands of the young hooker for the put down.
The Roosters wanted to make it a convincing win though, and would go on to do so.
Kenny-Dowall bagged his second of the night in a desperate effort to go over in the corner.
The recent good form of Boyd Cordner would continue, with the impressive back rower running a near perfect line to go over in the final ten minutes.
It was a hat-trick of tries to Kenny-Dowall in the end, after he plucked a perfect kick from Hastings and slammed it down over the line.
Curtis Rona scored for the Bulldogs right at the death, but it would do nothing more than make the score line slightly more attractive.
