Roosters search for answers at camp

The Roosters will head to a bye week camp on the NSW Central Coast in a bid to re-invigorate their NRL premiership defence.

Dejected Roosters players

The Roosters will head to a the NSW Central Coast to re-invigorate their NRL premiership defence. (AAP)

Desperate premiers Sydney Roosters are banking on a gruelling camp on the NSW Central Coast to kick-start their NRL title defence following their shock loss to Cronulla.

After 17 rounds the Tricolours have largely failed to replicate the form that brought them success last year but Saturday night's 30-28 loss to the embattled Sharks after leading 24-0 late in the first half was a new lowpoint.

The Roosters now sit in a logjam of teams on 20 points at the bottom of the top eight.

With a bye next weekend, coach Trent Robinson is taking them to Avoca, about 90 minutes north of Sydney, for a camp this week, aiming to reinvigorate their flagging season.

"It will be some good old fashioned hard work," Roosters prop Sam Moa told Channel Nine's Sunday Footy Show.

"We are going to have three or four days of extremely hard training and get that under the belt and relax over the weekend.

"Robbo sort of said we are going to take these next few days at camp to rectify what we did wrong and find a bit of character.

"We've been training good and the intensity is certainly there, it's hard to exactly pinpoint on what is missing.

"This year the competition is harder and teams are playing their best footy against us and we haven't really adjusted to that."

Moa admitted complacency in the second half cost the Roosters dearly against the Sharks.

"We certainly went into halftime a bit confident, we sort of came out in the second half and expected to win the game," he said.

"Cronulla came out and played with a lot more desire and they got the flow and momentum and it was hard for us to stop it."

Club legend Brad Fittler, also appearing on Channel Nine said the Roosters were a club under pressure.

In their round 16 loss to Manly Fittler singled out James Maloney for criticism and the former NSW pivot's game was again disappointing against the Sharks.

"They are not playing for each other, there is no doubt, there is definitely pressure there, and there are some blokes not pulling their weight," Fittler said.

"Sonny (Bill Williams) has copped some criticism but if I took his game individually he is playing some good footy, but as a team they are just not providing what they used to, they are just not going together."


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