Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson says the withdrawal of veteran half Mitchell Pearce was too much for his young halves to cope with as Penrith’s own young guns swamped the Roosters in a 38-18 win on Monday night.

“Their whole 80 minutes was front-foot attack. So the ball was in good positions for them for the whole game, and that’s confidence for them. It ended up in missed tackles and tries eventually,” he said.

“It’s hard when you take an experienced player out and you ask those guys to do their job.

“That’s NRL. We’ve faced it a lot this year. It’s really tough.”