The Roosters are rock bottom without a win and hold the worst percentage in the top tier.

But the first-year coach told the doomsayers to crawl under a rock and hold their opinions until the final siren sounds on the season - his side was not finished with yet.

"There's no reason why we can't beat the teams that are around us on the ladder the second time around."

Heath was particularly

scathing of club insiders who politely suggested the Roosters may be better off rebuilding in the second division.

"There's probably people around the club that would like to go down for maybe not needing the finance or as a club not working hard enough.

"At least in first division you're developing all those things, building all the time."

Heath is the first to admit the Roosters will not compete with the heavyweight clubs in the league. But he has a group that shows a lot of character and will not give up. That was evident when the gutsy Roosters ran out of steam, losing by 31 points to Sunshine Heights at Ainsworth Reserve on Saturday after holding a rare half-time lead.

"It's [working out] how you get your young team to concentrate for four quarters. We fell away in the third quarter, our tackles dropped down and our run stopped a bit. We've put some good games together; we've just got to learn to win one."

The Roosters' inexperience made the loss of vice-captain Jadyn Trowsdale to a broken leg even more costly. They still have dependable leaders in captain Jason King and tireless ruckman Mohammed Jawad. The most promising sign are the numbers on the training track.

"One of my aims this year was to get 60 players who would be around for five years and now we've got them. We need to stay in division 1 because if we went down to division 2 we could end up losing 20 players and we'll be struggling again for players."