Broncos manage to contain Roosters
Brisbane rookie Antonio Winterstein came back to haunt his old side by scoring a double as the Broncos just held on to beat the Sydney Roosters 28-24 in their NRL clash at the SFS on Friday night.
The former Roosters under 20s star crossed for two brilliant second half tries as the Broncos claimed a five tries to four victory in front of 18,464 fans.
Fullback Karmichael Hunt also crossed for a double while Steve Michaels had the visitors other four-pointer as the Broncos extended their streak to five successive wins against the Roosters.
NSW halfback aspirants Peter Wallace and Mitchell Pearce both had mixed performances with some outstanding touches and some woeful errors.
Broncos halfback Wallace kicked perfectly for Karmichael Hunt's try in the only points of the first half, but then dropped a kick off when Brisbane led 22-6 to invite the Roosters back into the contest.
NSW incumbent Pearce meanwhile bombed a certain first half try when he dropped his own grubber over the tryline and was fended away by Winterstein three minutes after the half-time break as the winger sprinted 45m to score.
But Pearce recovered to throw an outstanding offload in the 65th minute for fullback Sam Perrett to score and give the Roosters a sniff at 22-12.
Hunt's second try in the 68th minute essentially sealed the result before young half Pearce sprinted 45m to score in the 74th minute and provide a tense finish.
Returning forward Willie Mason barged over in the 78th minute to pull the Roosters within four points with 96 seconds left on the clock.
But the Roosters ultimately fell short and were left ruing costly errors that led to most of Brisbane's points.
Meanwhile forward Nate Myles faces an anxious wait after he was put on report in the 34th minute for kicking Corey Parker in the face while he was tackled.
The incident did not look too serious as Myles seemed to accidentally strike Parker as he was attempting to get off the ground to play the ball.
Broncos coach Ivan Henjak was furious that his team let the Roosters get back within striking distance after leading by 16 points with 12 minutes to play.
"If you're going to be a Bronco player then that is just unacceptable," said Henjak.
"It was ordinary.
"We never should have allowed them back in the game."
Skipper Darren Lockyer echoed the coach's sentiment, claiming players got lazy when they thought the result was in the bag.
"Every time it looked like we put enough gap between us we would do something silly or our defence would be lazy," said Lockyer.
"We won the game but it was a good kick in the guts for us really."
Roosters coach Brad Fittler was proud his men battled for the full 80 minutes but wasn't happy with some of the decisions they took with the ball in the first half.
"I thought it was a great game of footy," he said.
"We treaded water for a while ... we did not throw much at them early. We could have put them under more pressure."
Roosters centre Mitchell Aubusson is the only real injury concern after he left the field with a back injury early in the second half and will require scans during the week.
Post a comment about this article
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Becoming a member is free and easy, sign up here.