Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson has claimed "the time will come" for his side after their latest loss against either the Melbourne Storm or Penrith Panthers.
A 24-8 loss in the Victorian capital on Saturday evening means the tri-colours have lost 18 of their last 19 games against the two sides who have been at the top of the NRL over the last five years.
Robinson said it wasn't a mental issue as to why his side couldn't find a way past the teams, and that they had been close in previous games.
"It's pretty simple, we need to improve there. Obviously it has been pretty close the last couple of games there. There was a kick in it in the semi-final. We have to get over it, no use dwelling on it. There is still some footy to be played. It's up to us to get over that," Robinson said.
"There isn't a psychology around that when we play them, it's just... The time will come."
The game on Saturday, which saw a trio of sin bins, was described as "stop-start" by the coach.
"We got outworked at the start of the game. You could see they were tackling really well, and our starting crew just couldn't make the inroads that we wanted to make. It ended up being a bit of a messy game. They are obviously very good on last tackled, and they got through their sets, made some line breaks early and competed on the end of sets," Robinson said.
"It ended up, with sin bins and HIAs, being quite a stop-start game. There was no rhythm to it. We had opportunities in the second half, I feel like we were coming back to sort of attack them, but we couldn't execute enough, they had some good try-savers and that was about it."
The loss sees the Roosters cling onto their spot in the top four, just two points ahead of the Canterbury Bulldogs, Dolphins and St George Illawarra Dragons.