Sydney Roosters veteran Jason Ryles hopes his team can use Sunday's ground-breaking NRL win over Newcastle to energise their hapless season and kick-start an unlikely finals run.

Grand finalists last season, the Roosters have been one of the competition's biggest let downs in 2011, and Ryles admits the club have struggled to deal with their own pre-season expectations.

Despite the hard-fought 12-10 victory over the Knights, the Roosters remain in 13th spot on the ladder with just three victories all season.

But after snapping a five-game losing streak, Ryles sees a chance to get right back amongst the top eight during the tricky State of Origin period.

"It's not as nice being where we are at the moment (compared to last year), I guess it's a bit of a shock after expecting a lot at the start of the season and sort of coming up with what we have been," he said on Monday.

"Hopefully we can turn that around now and we've got plenty of time in the season to get ourselves in the mix.

"After the Origin period if you're around about the eight you can make a run for it.

"That's our goal now and we just need to pick up as many games as we can while teams are down on players."

It was a victory that even coach Brian Smith conceded had been ugly, but Ryles said that plenty can be achieved without winning in the spectacular fashion they did en route to last year's grand final.

"Probably the best way to describe it was that it was a relief, it wasn't the prettiest of victories but we'll take it and hopefully we can turn out season around a little bit," he said.

"I think it's human nature after you lose five games, thoughts start to creep into your head.

"The only blokes that could change it was us, Smithy was giving us the best preparation every week. Thankfully we held on there in the last few minutes.

"... We always try and score as many points as we can, but our trouble has been stopping the points. As long as you score more points than the other team then that will do us."

The only sour point to emerge from the weekend was an ankle injury to prop Lama Tasi which looks certain to sideline the young prop for several weeks.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP