James Tedesco’s hat-trick helped Sydney Roosters breeze past Canterbury Bulldogs 42-6 in the rescheduled game from Sunday.
The game was originally set to be played yesterday but a coronavirus scare surrounding Bulldogs prop Aiden Tolman, who is now self-isolating despite a negative test result, saw it moved to Monday but the change didn’t seem to affect the Roosters at all.
Sydney’s show got off to a thrilling opening. Slick passing off a quick play-the-ball saw Angus Crichton over for the first try after only two minutes. Then more quality play saw Brett Morris offload to Kyle Flanagan for their second.
Tedesco fashioned a third try in the opening 15 minutes, sending Crichton in for his second try of the match before the former scored himself off the back of a break from the fresh Sitili Tupouniua.
The Bulldogs got a foothold in the game in the latter stages of the first half and were unlucky to see Christian Crichton’s foot brush the touchline in his attempt to ground the ball off Will Hopoate’s cut-out pass.
The Roosters were much more clunky in the second half and it took them 21 minutes to get their fifth try of the game when Brett Morris offloaded out of a tackle to Tedesco.
Canterbury deservedly got some points int he second half. A beautiful outside-inside play saw Hopoate break and he found Kieran Foran on the inside. But Tedesco completed his hat-trick when he stepped off his right foot to beat two Bulldogs defenders with ease. And the Roosters finished with a flourish. A move involving countless players ended with Flanagan kicking wide for Brett Morris.
Bulldogs: Hopoate, Meaney, Averillo, Watene-Zelezniak, Crichton, Foran, Lewis, Napa, Marshall-King, Sue, Jackson, Faitala-Mariner, Elliott; Interchanges: To’omaga, Britt, Ogden, Harper
Tries: Foran; Goals: Meaney
Roosters: Tedesco, Tupou, J Morris, Manu, B Morris, Keary, Flanagan, Taukeiaho, Friend, Collins, Cordner, Crichton, Radley; Interchanges: Liu, Butcher, Tupouniua, Aubusson
Tries: Crichton 2, Flanagan, Tedesco 3, B Morris; Goals: Flanagan 7
On report: Crichton (11) – late tackle
Full match reports of all this weekend’s NRL games will feature in Monday’s League Express.
