St George Illawarra Dragons coach Dean Young has called on the NRL to change the "confusing" sin-bin rule, which he says is "killing the game".

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The Sydney Roosters were the deserved winners, but the Dragons players' sin-binnings contributed to the Red V's heavy last-start Anzac Day loss.

Speaking ahead of St George Illawarra's clash against the Newcastle Knights in Wollongong on Saturday, Young urged NRL bosses to seriously look at sending players to the sin-bin for five minutes, as opposed to 10 minutes.

St George Illawarra Dragons interim head coach Dean Young has called on the NRL to change the sin-bin rule. Picture by AAP.

"There are big momentum swings throughout the game. The biggest thing to overcome is the sin bins, and I'm still trying to get my head around why some are being put in the bin, and some aren't," Young said on Friday.

"It's a little bit confusing, and I think it's too big an impact on the score line when someone does go in the bin.

"You saw it last night [in the game between the Dolphins and Bulldogs].

"I think the NRL need to look at going back to a five-minute sin bin, so yep, you want to put someone in the bin, OK, well, that's for five minutes, not 10 minutes, because the 10 minutes is just killing teams, we've seen that across the game in the first 10 rounds."

The rookie head coach added that he was treating the clash against the rejuvenated Knights at WIN Stadium as a season restart for his struggling Dragons, chasing a first season win which would end an 11-game losing run stretching back to August 9 last year.

"The result against the Roosters wasn't what we wanted, and the scoreline certainly hurt all the players and staff, but we've moved on from that," Young said.

"I gave them three days off to get away from footy because we played eight rounds, and then the bye was a good time, and then we got some training done, another weekend off and started our prep for Newcastle on Monday.

"The boys are in a good headspace, but we've gotta go out there and do it now.

"I'm not sort of focused on confidence, it's sort of controlling what I can control, and that's getting back to the basics, and that's what we've been focused on, we've stripped everything back.

"For the basics and doing the same thing over and over and aiming for consistency in everything that we're doing with our footy, and that's the start tomorrow night.

"Tomorrow night is round one for us."

Asked if it felt like the season was restarting now, Young replied, "It does for me".

"It probably doesn't for our fans who have had to sit through the start of the season.

"The players and the staff feel for our fans because times are tough out there, and our fans are spending their hard-earned money to come and watch us play, and we've been putting up performances that we haven't been proud of.

"But we're really focused on going out there and competing really hard, being consistent, being disciplined, and we hope that they walk away from WIN Stadium tomorrow afternoon, really proud of the team that runs out."

The Dragons come into the 3pm match fresh off a bye last weekend, having been hammered 62-16 by the Roosters the week prior on Anzac Day.

The Knights are coming off a thrilling 42-38 victory over the South Sydney Rabbitohs, a win which ended a three-game losing run against the Panthers, Roosters and Tigers.

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Young said the Dragons would have to be switched on to down the 11th-placed Newcastle side, which enjoys a 5-4 win-loss record heading into the round 10 showdown in Wollongong.

"Justin Holbrook's done a great job with Newcastle, and they're playing some really good footy and an attractive style of footy and we're gonna need to be on defensively," Young said.

"What we've spoken about is being good defensively.

"They've got all their big guns back, but the messaging that I've been giving our players is making sure we get ourselves right, and we're focused really, on the fundamentals of the game, and I worked really hard on that over the last week and a half, and we're going into the game confident."