Premiers pass test of character with flying colours

Roosters coach Trent Robinson says if his side is still making the silly mistakes it made in round three in a month's time he'll be unhappy – but for now he is just proud with the way they overcame adversity to finish over the top of Parramatta.

The Roosters were their own worst enemy at times, making half a dozen first-half handling errors and trailing 18-14 with a quarter of the match remaining, before piling on the final three four-pointers to run out 32-18 winners.

They had to do so without hooker Jake Friend (shoulder), who came off after 31 minutes, prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves (rib cartilage) who succumbed just after halftime, and halfback Cooper Cronk (hamstring) who was ruled out the day before the game.

"I was really proud in the end," Robinson said.

"There were obviously some scratchy moments, 8-6 at halftime. I thought we got better the longer the game went. The game was in the balance, we lost Jared, we lost Friendy… the way we finished the game was high character."

Given the injuries both pre-game and on the fly, Robinson was also happy with how lesser lights such as Isaac Liu, Siosiua Taukeiaho and Zane Tetevano lifted.

"Changing positions and guys having to go into different positions… guys kept turning up. Rads (Victor Radley) went to nine and gets try out of dummy half.

"You want 17 to start and finish the game but if that doesn't happen you don’t want to say we lost because of that."

Robinson did not anticipate any of his injuries to be long-term.

Cronk was close to facing Parramatta and should be OK for round four, while Friend suffered a recurrence of the injury that caused him to miss round two and as a result would not be rushed back until it had settled but shouldn't miss more than another week or two.

Waerea-Hargreaves is managing an ongoing rib cartilage issue but is likely to be named for round four.

"Jared's rib cartilage popped out, it keeps going in and out so it's hard to get control there," Robinson said.

"Friendy, we all saw what happened, his neck got cranked in wrong direction, the reason he missed last week is the reason he couldn’t finish the game.

"You want to get it right, you don't want to have a week off then not finish the game, he'll come back when he's right."

Robinson reserved plenty of praise for match-winning fullback James Tedesco, who was simply sublime against Parramatta.

The Blues fullback was faultless at the back, sweeping up a number of tricky kicks and bouncing out of tackles to get his side moving out of trouble.

He charged over for two powerful tries – one on Parramatta's left edge and the other on the right – when there was little on offer in either case.

He was denied a hat-trick by a Luke Keary forward pass but made amends with a try assist, throwing a lovely ball for Taukeiaho to score the match-sealer.

"Teddy nailed it," Robinson said.

"There was a lot of kicking tonight, early kicks, trick kicks, teddy just turned up for all of it. He finishes off the game with a pass to Siua and try on the right hand side."