Roosters coach Trent Robinson says his side didn’t “adapt” to the late scratching of James Tedesco in the shocking 18-16 loss to the Cowboys.
Tedesco was called into the Blues’ squad for Game I on Saturday night after Dylan Edwards sustained a quad injury which ruled him out of the Origin opener.
It caused a headache for the Roosters, who had to shift Joey Manu to fullback and promote Michael Jennings to the starting side.
The Roosters trained all week with Tedesco at fullback and without five-eighth Luke Keary, who was in Blues camp as standby for Nicho Hynes.
Robinson said Manu and the entire spine “wasn’t good enough”.
“I mean Joey didn’t have his best night tonight. He was way off what his quality is and he’s usually not like that,” Robinson said.
“I expect us to be a team that can adapt with what happens but we just didn’t nail Kez (Keary) not being there and then Joey moving (to fullback)
“Our spine wasn’t good enough tonight as a whole, along with other players.
“I don’t think that should be based on a week, I expect us to go and adapt, but we didn’t.”
The Roosters looked as if they were going to coast home when they led 16-4 after 50 minutes and with a one-man advantage after Heilum Luki was sin binned for a dangerous tackle.
However, that seemed to galvanise the Cowboys, which Robinson gave the opposition plenty of credit for.
“They obviously had one in the bin but field position shifted completely (in the second half),” he said.
“They kicked us deep into our own 10 metre line constantly. The amount of bombs (Dom) Young and (Daniel) Tupou had to take.
“They stayed disciplined and did it over and over again until they eked out a coulplf of tries on our right edge.
“We didn’t have the same composure … That’s a game we needed to win 16-12.”
Keary was brutally honest when asked what happened to the Roosters in the second half.
“It was bad. It was probably as bad as we’ve been since the Bulldogs game,” the stand-in skipper said.
“We didn’t turn up in the second half but they did put us in some uncomfortable spots. It wasn’t going to be one of those game where we were going to blow them away.
“We needed to find a way to grind it out but we didn’t.”
