THE Atherton Roosters will use the remainder of the Cairns District Rugby League season to blood the club's emerging talent after the Cairns Kangaroos read the last rites over their finals hopes at Vico Oval yesterday.

Tormented by Kangaroos No.7 Steven Singleton, who had a hand in each of his side’s six tries, the Roosters struggled to contain the home side’s outside backs and went down 30-12.

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Milton Mossman, Anthony O’Connor, Gyson Soki, Johannes Gebadi (three goals), Singleton, and Tim Oberleuter crossed for the Kangaroos while Tyson Brooks, Matt DeTournouer and Simon Higham scored for the visitors.

The defeat leaves the Roosters nine points adrift of fifth-placed Ivanhoes with just over a month remaining before the start of the finals.

While his side still has a mathematical chance of cracking the top five, Atherton coach Tim Robinson conceded it was time to begin building towards 2009.

"We’ll use the rest of the year to keep blooding the young blokes. That’s our best bet," he said.

"I think we’ve played pretty good footy the past three or four weeks against some tough teams.

"Maybe we lacked some experience in certain areas of the game but we still gave it a good chop.

"Today (Sunday) I thought we competed well but our handling let us down. That’s what has haunted us all year."

While the Roosters’ finals dream is over, the fourth-placed Kangaroos look certain to play some role come September.

But Kangaroos coach Dave Westley said significant improvement was needed before his side could challenge for the premiership.

"We haven’t been going real well the past month with players not turning up for training and what not," he said.

"We had a big talk about our attitude at training on Thursday night. We’ve got five games left before the finals and we’re making it our goal to win all of those."

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