Sea Eagles coach Geoff Toovey labelled his side's eight-point win over last year's premiers as gutsy, following a resilient defensive effort from his side.
"It was gutsy, it was tough," Toovey said. "They're a big physical side. After half time we made an error off the kick off and they were camped down our end for probably 10 minutes. I thought it was really taxing on us to keep them at bay and a very resilient effort from the forwards in particular to keep the Roosters at bay."