The Sydney Roosters can do more than wish they'd done a Penrith and turned their NRL season around when they take on the resurgent Panthers at the Sydney Football Stadium on Sunday.

Parked well and truly in the last chance saloon after just four wins all season, the 2010 grand finalists come up against a Penrith outfit gaining confidence after four wins from their past five games.

The Panthers shot into the top eight with a second straight victory, 20-6 over Canterbury last weekend, which kept intact caretaker coach Steve Georgallis' perfect record since he took the reins from Matt Elliott.

"They do have a lot of momentum at the moment," Roosters captain Braith Anasta said. "They're playing some really good football.

"Georgallis has got them playing with a lot of spirit and passion.

"They've won their past few games and they're high on confidence at the moment and they're going to be tough to beat."

The Roosters have been hoping for a similar sort of revival for weeks now and their chances of finals action will almost certainly be over if they can't notch a win over their 2003 grand final rivals.

They hit rock bottom with Monday night's embarrassing 38-12 home loss to Canberra and are not even contemplating a miracle run to the play-offs.

"We just want to win a game," Anasta said.

"Talking about making the eight, that's sort of a fair way away at the moment.

"Our next step is trying to prepare for this week's game against Penrith and winning the game and playing some good football and getting back to the form that we know that we can play."

State of Origin trio Anthony Minichiello, Mitchell Pearce and Nate Myles return for the Roosters, while Georgallis did not name his Origin pair Petero Civoniceva and Luke Lewis this week.

Lewis has declared he will be right, while injured centre Michael Jennings (ankle) is still a 50-50 chance after travelling with the NSW side this week.

The Roosters are hoping Pearce's return from a draining representative schedule can fire the combination with Dally M medallist Todd Carney that proved lethal last year.

"We get the Origin boys back this week and it's important that they come back with a positive attitude and try and pump up the group here," Anasta said.

"We can't keep talking about last season.

"We know how well we played last year and we got in such a great position and got ourselves to a grand final, but we're a long way away from that at the moment.

"There's a process and we've got to keep working through that and get the best out of each other."

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