ROOSTERS prop Mark O'Meley sat out yesterday's loss to the Eels, giving him the perfect spectator's view to compare it with Friday's night's bell-ringer, when the Storm shaded Manly 16-10.

The experienced prop wasn't alone in the NRL in shaking his head with a touch of both awe and apprehension. "It was massive. There was a lot more intensity there than today's game," he said.

"It was finals footy — a month out. Certainly I've been thinking about it since Friday, about how much we're going to have to lift."

And quickly. The Roosters face their own Melbourne trial this Friday on a short turnaround and, unlike Manly, without the luxury of playing at home.

Rating his side beside the top two, coach Brad Fittler was succinct. "On today's effort, (we're) a fair bit lower but a week's a very long time."

Unfortunately for Fittler and the Roosters, a week is a luxury he doesn't have and a rapid operation regroup was high on the club's priorities last night.

"I've been thinking about Melbourne since last Friday," O'Meley said. "Our boys who played today will go and ice up their wounds, get the game out of their system and come in tomorrow and get ready."

Five-eighth Braith Anasta said the Storm's effort last Friday was "unreal". So, too, Manly's for running with them. "Our standard certainly wasn't there today and we've got to work hard to get up there. We've been on track for the last few weeks and we've just gone back a couple of steps again. It's a big week for us," he said.

"At the moment, they (Melbourne and Manly) are ahead of everyone else unless a couple of teams get a bit of momentum going into the semis."

In the Roosters' favour is the fact they are one of the few sides to be able to claim anything like boasting rights against the Storm, having beaten them in their past two outings. But that could cut both ways. The Storm don't like being pushed around and will have every incentive to make another clear statement to the rest of the competition — in case anyone missed the point they made at Brookvale. Roosters half Mitchell Pearce certainly didn't.

"The other night looked like a State of Origin match. I'm sure our game (today) wasn't up to that standard," he said.

"We've slipped into fourth now, so it's a must-win game for us … We're learning every week but we've got to start performing instead of just learning because it's going to be too late this year otherwise.

"We've got to be on our game but it's good because we do need a challenge … We're up and down big time and I don't know how you explain that but we've got to look at our attitude."

Pearce also has to look at the television long and hard this week after Manly half Matt Orford had a terrible time trying to make anything of his final tackle options.

"It's going to be something I'l have to look at on the video and work hard on this week. They pressured Orford big time and that probably got them the win in the end," Pearce said. "Braith (Anasta) and I will be watching plenty of video this week and try and organise something to get away from that."