James Tedesco believes the Sydney Roosters have still not produced a complete 80-minute performance this season, a warning for the side's rivals ahead of the NRL finals.
It comes as coach Trent Robinson denies Penrith's loss to Melbourne would leave the Roosters pondering their hopes of locking up a top-two finish and home final in week one of the play-offs.
The Roosters produced moments of trademark attacking brilliance in Friday night's 38-14 thrashing of Parramatta, punishing the Eels' leaky edge defence during two separate sin-binnings.
But when they lost Naufahu Whyte to the sin bin for a professional foul midway through the second half, Easts opened the door for the Eels to run in the final two tries and finally put some respectability on the scoreboard.
Bench hooker Joey Lussick darted out of dummy half in the final seconds for a try that particularly disappointed Robinson.
"The one at the end was really frustrating. You fight so hard to get the (Eels' scoreline) to eight points and you want to keep it there," the coach said.
"I thought for 60 of 80 (minutes), really good. Continually searching for better and your best and that's the case tonight."
The Roosters are set to finish the weekend in third place on the ladder and are far and away the NRL season's most prolific attacking team, scoring an average of 31 points a game.
But in a year dominated by Melbourne and Penrith, captain Tedesco felt the win over the Eels was only the latest reminder his side had not yet pieced together a complete performance.
"I feel like when we show our best footy for periods and when we're at our best, we're pretty hard to stop," he said.
"But then we have lapses and we had that lapse at the end of the game there where we had the sin bin and let in a couple of tries.
"We need a good 80-minute performance and we're still building towards that. I don't think we've had that all year.
"When we get towards the end of the year and we get into finals time, we need to nail 80-minute performances.
"That's where we can look for improvement."
Thursday night's loss to Melbourne means the second-placed Panthers are now only one win ahead of the Roosters with three rounds remaining in the regular season.
Ivan Cleary's side also have an inferior points differential compared to Robinson's, so risk falling behind if they drop a game in the absence of injured halfback Nathan Cleary.
But Robinson is unconcerned with his side's chances of leapfrogging Penrith and joining the ladder-leading Storm in the top two.
"The focus will be us, exactly what Ted talked about, our continual search for our best," he said.
"We know what we're capable of. It's a great time to be searching for it and finding it."
