The Sydney Roosters' NRL premiership tilt is on life support, and in urgent need of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves' return, after a comprehensive dismantling by champions Penrith.
From the moment Daniel Tupou coughed up Nathan Cleary's first kick, the Roosters were playing catch-up in the first qualifying final at Panthers Stadium on Friday night.
The final score was 30-10, but had looked on track to be bigger after a 24-0 first half, and the game never seriously resembled a contest from the 25-minute mark onwards.
All the talk in the lead-up to the finals series opener concerned Nathan Cleary's shoulder, and how it would withstand the pressure of the Roosters' big men on the star halfback's return from injury.
Instead, it was the Roosters wilting under self-inflicted pressure.
On the last night at the sacred Penrith Park, Easts routinely committed the cardinal sin of gifting the clinical Panthers opportunities.
Discipline and opportunism have won the Panthers three-straight premierships and the Roosters know it, having not beaten them in that time.
Case in point: the four first-half tries that propelled Penrith to victory all came on the back of either a Roosters' error, conceded penalty or poor decision.
"The first 20 minutes, I think we probably had one or two sixes again, three errors, in that period of time, which gave them field position and they just executed really well," said Roosters coach Trent Robinson.
Rubbing salt into the undermanned Roosters' wounds, the injury replacements were responsible for a couple of those costly mistakes.
Sam Walker's understudy Sandon Smith kicked way too deep to Brian To'o in the in-goal, gifting the Panthers the seven-tackle set that put Izack Tago in position to score.
It was a tough night generally for the stand-in halfback, who put a foot into touch at dummy-half as the Roosters were fighting for ascendancy.
He and Luke Keary were targeted all night by the Panthers, with Liam Martin particularly keen to rip into Keary.
Connor Watson, replacing Brandon Smith at hooker, put the crusher tackle on James Fisher-Harris that preceded Luke Garner's first try and a 22-0 deficit.
On his return, Cleary was given too much time and space by their uncharacteristically sluggish opponents.
The Roosters cried out for Waerea-Hargreaves' ferocity and leadership as frustrations began to boil over in a first half yielding only 38 per cent possession for the visitors.
By the time rampant ex-Panther Spencer Leniu came on to a chorus of boos, the Roosters were down four tries.
"I felt like our contacts were poor and theirs were good. Our bench guys came on and shifted that," Robinson said.
The halftime break clearly did the Roosters good. They then ran in two tries to close the gap to 14, but the damage had been done.
"We can do it in periods of games when we put it all together, we're pretty hard to beat," said Roosters captain James Tedesco.
"But we probably haven't had an 80-minute performance all year, especially against teams like Penrith and Melbourne. You have to do it for 80 minutes."
Criticised for their inability to match it with the heavy hitters in 2024, the Roosters have now lost 10 games in a row against the Panthers and are at risk of yet another early finals exit.
The Roosters have failed to advance beyond the second week of any of five finals campaigns since their 2019 premiership win.
Robinson's men will contend with either Canterbury or Manly in week two, and have lost to both in 2024.
