Roosters win as points flow at Kogarah

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St George Illawarra Dragons v Sydney Roosters

The Sydney Roosters have put last weeks shock loss behind them to take a 31-24 victory over the St George Illawarra Dragons in an entertaining clash at Kogarah.

The opening twenty minutes of the contest was the definition of an end-to-end affair with both teams going tit-for-tat scoring. The opening try for the Roosters came with ease after just five minutes when the Dragons defence were caught napping and Daniel Tupou was able to stroll past the outside defence to score.

If it looked like it was going to be a long night for the Red ‘V' then they wanted to prove the opposite with Tyrell Sloan getting one back on Daniel Tupou as he scored out wide.  Val Holmes converted for 6-6 after just ten minutes.

Just because they had scored down that side, it didn't mean that the Dragons weren't vulnerable on their right as yet again Daniel Tupou was able to stroll across into the corner to score and after the conversion, the Roosters lead 12-6.

Within 13 minutes, there was 24 points scored as the Dragons this time decided to go left and took advantage of the numbers as Sione Finau scored. Val Holmes converted again to level the scores. Momentum was all with the Dragons and Finau put his second on the ball just a matter of minutes after his first and the Red ‘V' had an 18-12 lead.

Things looked to go from bad to worse for the Roosters with Victor Radley put on report for dangerous contact in the air on Clint Gutherson and then Sam Walker was sent to the sin bin for dangerous contact on the legs on David Klemmer. The sin bin though had the opposite effect as the Roosters were able to score when Robert Toia outjumped Val Holmes to score.

On the stroke of halftime, Sam Walker made up for his sin bin adding a field goal to give the Roosters a 19-18 lead at the break.

The second half wasn't as free flowing as the first half as it took seven minutes for the scores to change and it was when Billy Smith went through a big gap in the defensive line to score.

The game became an arm-wrestle for most of the second half, the Dragons thought they had closed the gap just after the hour mark but both Grant Atkins and the Bunker denied them with Jacob Liddle ruled to have knocked on despite the arguments of the Red ‘V' that he had held the ball.

A contentious successful challenge for the Dragons with fifteen minutes to go gave them the ball after errors began to riddle the Roosters game and eventually Jaydn Su'a was able to go through and score. Kyle Flanagan converted to close the game back to a solitary point.

The Roosters began to dominate field position after the try and inside the last minute Victor Radley sealed the victory with a try next to the posts and Sam Walker put the icing on the 31-24 cake.

Next week, the Dragons have a tough clash against the Bulldogs at Accor Stadium whilst the Roosters head to Shark Park for a clash with the Roosters.