Sydney Roosters captain Braith Anasta has demanded his side become more ruthless, believing that is the hard lesson the needs to be learned from NRL rivals St George Illawarra.

The Roosters are licking their wounds after Sunday's bruising 19-12 loss to the Dragons at the SCG with a short turnaround for Friday's clash with Cronulla.

"We can learn a lot from St George and the way they are, they're a professional team and they're a tough team and they're pretty ruthless," Anasta told reporters on Monday.

"We were a little bit impatient at times yesterday and probably took the foot off the accelerator a bit at times.

"We're a young team and we're learning and it's up to us to turn it into a positive and not a negative."

The Roosters had won five straight before Sunday's slip and believe they are gaining on the ladder-leading Dragons who flogged them 28-6 on Anzac Day.

"The Dragons are the benchmark and their defence is the best in the competition," Anasta said.

"They're pretty much ruthless for the 80 minutes and you know they're going to keep coming and coming and you've got to fight with them for that full 80 minutes.

"If we do meet them in the semi-finals we can take confidence from yesterday, we know we can improve so we certainly feel we'd have a really good shot against them."

Anasta was one of the few Roosters stars willing to talk on Monday but denied the players had adopted a siege mentality after the loss, and the resurfacing of prop Jason Ryles' critics.

"We're disappointed about the loss and you walk away from it and everyone goes, `It was a good effort and you did well' and all this sort of stuff," Anasta said.

"The bottom line is we lost and we didn't get the two points and we can't be happy with that, we can't be happy with losing and we want to win next week."

Centre Kane Linnett will miss 4-6 weeks after suffering medial ligament damage in his right knee.

Other injury fears have eased with Ryles (ribs) and back Joseph Leilua (corked quad) both possible starters against the Sharks at Toyota Stadium.

Second rower Mitch Aubusson (shoulder) is likely to return a week later for the round 24 clash with Gold Coast.

Anasta rushed to the defence of Ryles, who gave away a penalty for his over-zealous handling of Jamie Soward and dropped a simple pass after a kick-off as the Roosters mounted a comeback.

"He might have given one penalty away yesterday but he's great for the rest of the game," Anasta said. "It didn't cost us.

"He's been outstanding, he's probably been one of the best buys in the competition."

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