Sydney Roosters coach Brian Smith hailed the performance of his players following Sunday's 24-6 win over Wests Tigers, singling out young prop Martin Kennedy for special praise after his barnstorming display.

The Roosters ended a run of two successive defeats against an injury-hit Tigers side, with 22-year-old Queenslander Kennedy scoring his first ever try, in addition to clocking up 129 running metres and stopping Alan Schirnack from scoring underneath the posts with a last-ditch tackle in the second half.

"Martin was great and had some awesome carries ... Marty's done okay for us, he had a pretty good season last year as a young bloke making his way first year in," Smith said.

"Confidence is a big thing for those young guys."

Smith's side ended the game with 12 men on the field after Anthony Minichiello, who scored his 103rd try for the club, and is now just one shy of Bill Mullins' record, was sin-binned for not allowing Tigers skipper Robbie Farah to play the ball.

The veteran coach praised his players' defensive effort to keep out the desperate visitors, who were camped in the Roosters' half for the latter stages of the game, before Todd Carney broke free to score in the final minute.

"The guys were fantastic, even when we went down to 12 men everybody dug in and came up with the sort of defensive effort that we'd like to see every week," Smith said.

"I hope that's our standard, I thought we did so much to hang in well with the 'D' (defence) but put on some really good attacking plays as well.

"That's our goal from now on ... to build on that."

Minichiello also heaped praise on Kennedy and said he was one of the best young forwards he had seen in his long career.

"He was awesome, his running game was great, he will definitely be a representative player, his work ethic is great, he is always willing to learn and is a smart kid," Minichiello said.

"He is up there with the best I have seen, he is 120 kilos and can get across the park, he is pretty quick and has got good leg speed."

Minichiello said he was disappointed to leave his teammates a man down nine minutes from time, and revealed it was Farah who got him marched to the sidelines by referee Tony Archer - who earlier had been sent flying by an advancing Todd Carney.

"I thought he got up to go and run again so I grabbed his arm to get the ball and he sort of let go of it and it looked like a bit of rake from my part and Robbie said `send him off' and he did!" he said.

"I was disappointed to leave the team one down when you are under pressure but our defence was outstanding today.

"I was filthy when Toddy ran into the ref, I was coming around to the right-hand side, if he wasn't there I could have been away for another try."

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