Under-siege Sydney Roosters coach Brad Fittler has put premiership success before personal pride in enlisting the help of favourite son and rugby league Immortal Artie Beetson.

Beetson on Monday signed on to be Fittler's assistant for the remainder of 2009, the two former Test captains to work side by side in attempting to resuscitate the club's on-field fortunes.

The Roosters have just three wins from 11 matches this season, and face a daunting assignment next up with a trip to Brookvale Oval to play Manly on Saturday afternoon - the Roosters having lost their last two games at the ground by an aggregate score of 98-0.

This will be Beetson's third coming as a coach at the Roosters, having previously worked as captain-coach in 1977 and 1978 and then as head coach from 1985-1988.

Pressure has been mounting on Fittler to turn things around, with chief executive Steve Noyce applauding his coach's acceptance of help.

"One of the things I admire enormously about Freddy is his love of the Roosters and he just saw Arthur as a real Roosters person - that's what he kept saying to me," Noyce said.

"We thought there was an option for us to bring someone in to help and Freddy thought that Artie ticked a lot of boxes.

"He's a vastly experienced and there's obviously a lot that he can teach players and coaches about the game and he loves the club."

There had been suggestions former Northern Eagles coach Peter Sharp or Wigan and ex-Great Britain mentor Brian Noble would be brought in to help Fittler who had appeared to lose the support of his players before crisis talks last week.

Noyce fended off questions as to whether the move to bring in Beetson was done at the club or Fittler's insistence.

"It doesn't really matter how it happened," Noyce said.

"People talk about KPI's in life - the premiership ladder's the KPI in professional sport.

"We're not happy where we're running and we all agreed that it would be in everyone's best interests if we looked at changing the some of the way we did our business."

While the 64-year-old Beetson brings a wealth of experience to the club, his coaching resume hardly throws up flattering results.

In his two years as captain coach the club finished preliminary finalists and sixth, while the Roosters made the finals only once during his stint as head coach in the mid 1980s.

In his two years at the helm of Cronulla in 1992-93, the Sharks finished 13th and tenth.

Beetson's greatest coaching success has been saved for Origin level - having guided Queensland to a one-off win in 1981 and series wins from 1982-84.

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