Roosters coach Trent Robinson has described the constant speculation around the future of several of his peers as "self-destructive" for the game at a time when the focus should be on a remarkable race to September.
Speaking after his side's gut-wrenching 14-12 loss to the Canberra Raiders, Robinson said now is the time to concentrate on footy rather than the coaching "circus" that has dominated the news cycle in recent weeks.
"The only thing I would like to say on the last couple of weeks as a rugby league fan, thank god we've got the salary cap to keep the competition equal," Robinson said.
"It's been an obvious circus and luckily we've got a highly talented group of rugby league players that get put under a salary cap and they keep producing each weekend.
"There's a lot of stuff around the game that's been self-destructive."
The last month of the season has thrown up a slew of upset results with the Raiders' gutsy performance at GIO Stadium capping off an eventful round for the top eight.
Match Highlights: Raiders v Roosters - Round 23, 2018
The Roosters have not won in Canberra since 2010 and the hoodoo continued as they missed an opportunity to go a game clear of the Storm and Rabbitohs.
Despite the Raiders only showing glimpses of what they are capable of this season, Robinson said his side knew they were up for a tough afternoon in the nation's capital.
The Roosters looked to be surging home when Victor Radley's try levelled the scores at 12-12 but their captain Boyd Cordner said errors at the worst possible times stifled the comeback.
"We got to 12-all and had back-to-back errors which really hurt us, and they got some momentum from that," Cordner said.
"They were down our end of the footy field and got the penalty so there were some crucial errors and we need to clean them up going into the last two games of the regular season."
Rather than seeing the loss as a major setback, Robinson said he was more concerned about the style of play his side showed as they look to go one better than last year's preliminary final loss and get to the decider.
"It's a missed opportunity to finish it off and play some of the footy we want to play," he said.
"It's obvious you want to finish in a top position, but I would have liked to have seen a little bit more to start the game from us.
"If you're not searching for continual improvement you're going to be satisfied with something that's not going to get a great result.
"We know we're on the right path as I've said many times, but we're unsatisfied so we keep searching for more."
