Peter Sterling has questioned whether the Sydney Roosters’ demolition of Parramatta will have them primed for the NRL finals.
The Roosters ran riot with a 44-10 thrashing of the Eels on Saturday night to grab the minor premiership.
Importantly, the Roosters snapped a two-game losing streak to bounce back into the winner’s circle before next week’s qualifying final.
Sterling did nominate the Roosters his premiership tip.
However, he said their eight-tries-to-two rout of the Eels was hardly the ideal preparation leading into a big game.
“It was a bit of a training run at times,” Sterling told the Sunday Footy Show.
“They got a bit of a reminder every now and then.
“They’re going to come up against defences that are going to read their shapes a lot differently to what Parramatta did last night.”
The Eels had two players sin-binned with Mitchell Moses and Michael Jennings both off the field in the second-half.
At one point they were reduced to just 11 men on the field, which allowed the Roosters to create overlaps easily and their back five ran riot.
Latrell Mitchell was the only member of the Tri-Colours’ three-quarter line not to run for more than 150 metres, though he did finish with three tries.
James Tedesco and Blake Ferguson both continued their rich veins of form with both topping 200 metres.
“There was an opportunity to get the minor premiership which is a little bit, not a lot,” Roosters great Brad Fittler said.
“They maintained their rage and they just kept scoring tries, which I thought was a really good sign.
“Latrell Mitchell was outstanding and he was pretty battered.”