A dejected Boyd Cordner has denied any talk of complacency following the Roosters’ shock 20-12 loss at the hands of the Cronulla Sharks on Easter Sunday.
Instead, Cordner has insisted his in-form Roosters knew what was coming and simply “just weren’t good enough” against the previously winless Sharks.
“The Sharks came out and they played unbelievable, I think they only made one mistake,” the Roosters, Blues and Kangaroos second-rower told NRL.com.
“We knew they were going to come out really well, they’ve got a great team, they’ve got a lot of great players in that side as well.
“We didn’t help ourselves to start with some early penalties and it felt like we were defending our own line for a fair bit but we knew that was coming, we expected that.
“They were always going to be tough, we showed some character in the end to stick in there but we didn’t put in a full 80 minute performance.”
When asked if his side came into the Round 5 contest slightly complacent after an easy victory last week over the Raiders, Cordner insisted that wasn’t the case, with execution on the day letting the Tricolours down.
“Not at all, we prepared all week for a game like tonight, we weren’t surprised at all. We knew it was coming.”
The big talking point out of Sunday’s match was the performance of boom Sharks five-eighth Jack Bird who was pivotal in earning the Sharks their first victory of 2015 with two tries and a clever assist.
“He’s a great young kid, he performed really well in the Nines tournament and we just didn’t work hard enough on him tonight, he’s got a big future.”
Cordner, 22, was one of many Roosters players forced to make a stack of tackles because of the Sharks’ brilliant completion rate and ability to earn repeat sets.
He had 37 tackles as part of the Roosters’ 429 in total, 131 more than their opponents.
As a result of their defensive work the Roosters were dull in attack, looking nothing like the team that put on 34 points with ease last weekend.
They’ll be hoping to bring more in attack as they travel to Brisbane to take on the Broncos on Friday night in Round 6.
“We have a short turnaround this week so now we just need to recover and get our bodies right for a game up in Brisbane,” Cordner said.
