Fa'aoso took the early guilty plea after dumping South Sydney fullback Greg Inglis in spear tackles twice in the fiery loss at Brookvale Oval on Friday.

Manly centre Steve Matai will also miss Monday's battle at Kogarah after he took the early plea for his swinging arm on George Burgess, which bounced up off the ball and on to his chin.

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However, Soward claims the Dragons have their own issues to fix up, declaring they handed the Roosters too much territory and possession by giving away silly penalties in the Anzac Day defeat.

"Sure, our discipline was disgusting last week," he said.

"The penalties, you just can't do it coming out of your end the whole game.

"It's hard to give guys like Morris, Nightingale, Vidot, Cooper and Stanley the ball when we're coming off our own end with penalties and stuff.

"So we need to fix that up firstly and then if you're a disciplined side, at the moment then you seem to be getting all the calls and getting the field position.

"So that's what we need to fix up and if we fix that up then we're automatically in the arm wrestle."

Manly have named Tom Symonds in the centres to replace Matai, while Brent Kite and Brenton Lawrence are selected to start in the front row, with Geoff Toovey naming a six-man bench, including George Rose and former Dragons forward David Gower.

Soward conceded the loss to a red-hot Roosters was a "little step back" following three previous victories.

He admitted the Roosters deserved to be among the top four teams so far this season, along with Manly, Souths and Melbourne.

"There's a lot made about the top four at the moment, we ran into one [of them] on Thursday," he said.

"I think for us it's about our performance and it wasn't good enough on Thursday. If we don't play like we can play then it can be messy.

"It's a little step back, we were down for the first three rounds and then came back and we were 3-3.

"We saw the things that we need to fix this morning and it was a pretty good video session and constructive." Meanwhile the Dragons yesterday officially signed English prop Mike Cooper from Warrington for next season.

Cooper said he was ready for the challenge of the NRL.

"The next step for me is to test myself in Australia and gain some experience," he said.

"I'm fully aware it's going to be a big learning curve for me, I'll be back at square one again really but it's something that really excites me.

"There were a couple of clubs that we were speaking to within the NRL, having watched the last couple of seasons.

"St George Illawarra is a club with a great heritage. This along with the big names involved with the club and the pictures of where they are based at Wollongong ticked all the boxes for me," Cooper said.