Roosters cling on to beat Warriors 16-14 but victory a scorecard of mistakes

HAVE you ever backed a horse that was ahead on the home straight only to be pipped at the post?

HAVE you ever backed a horse that looked home and hosed with the finishing post looming, then all of a sudden just when you were about to collect, something storms down the outside and steals your money?

That's how it felt after holding on against the fast finishing New Zealand Warriors.

The only difference was that there was a collect at the end of the race.

After cruising at 16-0, the Roosters hung on to win 16-14.

As predicted in last week's column, the match seemed to be a competition in who could make the most mistakes.

Luckily for us, the Warriors outscored us in that facet of the game.

If it weren't for the Warriors goalkicker shanking a kick that would have made Ian Baker-Finch proud, we may have had another to add to the "how did we lose that" collection.

But a win is a win.

This was a game that we would have lost last year.

Cast your minds back to St George Illawarra and Souths.

Perhaps you are trying to erase those two games from your Roosters memory bank.

This time, in a good sign for the future, the Roosters made amends.

It comes as no surprise that we were once again on the wrong end of the penalty count.

Last week I read a statistic that only once since the year 2000 have we finished a season with more penalties than we have conceded.

That's despite having five different coaches and many different playing rosters in that period.

This week it's another team renowned for getting all the favours.

During this time both clubs, in particular the Broncos, have had quality players, and over the years we have seen some classic matches.

The salary cap appears to have finally caught up with the Broncos, however.

No longer do they have the entire Queensland and Australian team running out each week.

For years we were told it was the players who wanted to play for less to be a part of a winning club.

Now it seems there are other clubs to choose from.

Regardless, the Broncos are always well drilled and will punish us if we continue to be ill-disciplined.

Easts to win.