THE nature of the turnaround by the Sydney Roosters in their first game since the departure of Chris Anderson proved he had to go as coach.

This wasn't one of those performances in which a team feels embarrassed by its coach quitting due to the poor results it had been getting and resolves to put in a better effort. This was a performance in which the players looked refreshed and renewed and played accordingly.

The Roosters had pride and purpose again in their 23-12 win over Cronulla at Sydney Football Stadium. They had a plan and they followed it to perfection. There were personnel changes, positional changes, a much tighter defence and a hell of an improvement in attitude.

It was a display of what the Roosters should be capable of on a regular basis, rather than a one-off that will be followed by them fading back to poor form over the next few weeks.

Whether or not Brad Fittler turns out to be the man who should coach the Roosters into next year and beyond, expect the team to finish this season positively under him. They won't be bothered by where they are on the competition table, which is still second last, by the way. They will just want to get out there and play, and enjoy it.

Most weeks this year, the Roosters have looked better on paper than they have produced on the field. But they had played poorly so often that I had begun to think that maybe they weren't much good after all. But their effort against the Sharks proved they are significantly better than their season form suggests.

It was great to see the passion the Roosters showed on Saturday night. Twice Cronulla came back, from 6-0 to 6-6 and 12-6 to 12-12, but the Roosters never got flustered. When the Roosters forced plenty of good field position but couldn't score a try during the second half, Braith Anasta kicked a field goal for a 19-12 lead.

That was a great move. It wasn't a decision that said, "Oh, we're not capable of scoring, we'd better kick a field goal to make sure we hold on". It was a move that said, "OK, we haven't quite been able to get over the line, but we deserve to be further in front, so let's get the points go from there". The Roosters certainly did go from there. It was a tremendous effort.

It was a night when the teams holding the bottom two positions on the competition table both won. Unfortunately for Penrith, their 30-20 win over the Bulldogs at Telstra Stadium pulled them out of last place only for as long as it took the Roosters to get back in front of them by beating Cronulla.

But that won't bother the Panthers. The key for them, after all the drama the club has been through with some players moving on at the end of the season, others being told they can look for another club and some rumoured to be wanting out, was simply to get a win - any win.

They got lucky in terms of the Bulldogs losing three key players to injury before the game, then losing three more during it, but Penrith have had plenty of bad luck this season. They deserved a change. But whether Saturday night's win will lead to them emerging from a rut, we'll have to wait to see.

Penrith have had a couple of false dawns already this season. It's best their fans wait to see what the team does over the next couple of weeks before getting too excited.