The 'nucleus' missing from Roosters win

Take these nine blokes and you have the nucleus of a premiership-winning team - Brandon Smith, Daniel Tupou, Dominic Young, Nat Butcher, Sam Walker, Victor Radley, Egan Butcher, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Lindsay Collins. All nine were missing from the Roosters line-up last Friday night yet the team still managed to carve out a 36-28 win over old rivals Souths. The win without so many stars shows what many believe - that the Roosters have the best depth in the NRL. That will be crucial when the finals basically come down to a battle of the fittest, with injuries and suspensions likely to decide who takes the title. And with such a powerful squad and many of these nine blokes set to return in coming weeks, the Roosters could be the team to beat.

Major concern that could leave Roosters 'scrambling'

With James Tedesco, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Daniel Tupou and Luke Keary all in the veteran stage, 2024 represents probably the last opportunity for this Roosters squad to win another premiership together. It's now or never with the ageing Roosters roster primed for a hard reset in 2025, with new blood certain to come in to give the club a fresher, younger look. The Roosters have the talent for a top four finish and the way they ended last season is certain to give the group confidence of a better showing this year. After a slow start that seemed destined to cost them any chance of finals football, Trent Robinson's men came good under pressure, winning six straight games to make it into the second weekend of finals footy. As always, the Roosters have bought well and Dominic Young (Knights) and Spencer Leniu (Panthers) are two world-class players who will add strike power - out wide and up the middle respectively.

Tupou celebrations cap fine win

Speaking of veteran try-scoring wingers, Daniel Tupou just keeps on keeping on for the Roosters.At 31 and in his 11th season in the red, white and blue, Tupou celebrated a milestone game with two tries against the Knights on Friday night.Tupou equalled the great Brad Fittler's tally of 217 games for the club to become the 10th-most-capped Rooster, and still looks to have plenty of football in his legs.It was a fine win by the Roosters, who lost three players for the season last week and Joey Manu before kick-off.