Ifs, ruts and maybes: Knights left searching for answers

A sunny autumn Sunday afternoon in front of a sold-out crowd of adoring fans should have been the setting for the Newcastle Knights to bounce back from consecutive losses. 

Instead, the error-riddled Knights suffered an embarrassing 20-4 loss to Wests Tigers at McDonald Jones Stadium that left coach Adam O’Brien and captain Kalyn Ponga questioning their team’s attitude. 

“The honest answer is, it wasn’t good enough,” O’Brien said. 

“We made it really hard on ourselves with the amount of play-one errors, and we’ve got some improving to do.” 

Ponga would not dismiss their listless performance as “just one of those days”.

“We’re not going to shy away from it. I think we’ve got to be accountable,” Ponga said. 

“We’re not just going to wake up tomorrow and pretend it didn’t happen. 

“For a lot of boys there’s a lot of hard lessons; as a team there’s some hard lessons. 

“We’ve got to be better, not only today, but just around the place. 

“When we wake up on Monday, we’ve got to be better during the week so that we can come out and put in a performance that we’re proud of.” 

Newcastle were without injured senior players including first-choice halfback Jack Cogger, forwards Jacob Saifiti, Adam Elliott and Jack Hetherington, and winger James Schiller. 

O’Brien was unsure how many of those players would be available to play against Cronulla at the same venue in Round 7 but will demand more from those who are selected. 

“I just said to the team, you’re not going to be able to just turn up and hope that you get it right on Sunday,” the coach told media post-match.

“You’ve got to train your way through it, especially if you’re a young team, and we’re a very young team at the moment with some personnel out. 

“But at the end of the day, it’s the NRL and everyone goes through these periods, so we’ve got to get our training right. And the more good training days you put together, the better your chances are of performing on Sunday. 

“We’re really fortunate that we get to be here again in seven days and rectify a few things because they (the crowd) stayed till the end, and I didn’t think that they probably wanted to, but they did, and that’s who they are, and we owe them.” 

It took a Fletcher Sharpe try in the final minute to prevent back-to-back 20-0 shut-outs after Newcastle lost to the Bulldogs by that score the previous Sunday at Homebush. 

Stretching back to a Bradman Best try in the 74th minute of their 26-6 loss to Gold Coast on March 22, Sharpe's try provided Newcastle’s first points in 166 minutes of football. 

The Knights have scored just 46 points in five games this season – 33 less than the last-placed Eels – to have easily the worst attacking record of any team in the NRL. 

“I don’t think there’s a heap of teams that have got everything in order either, but I need to concern myself with us,” O’Brien said. 

“There’s a combination of things with the attack. There’s concentration errors, which heaps pressure on you, and can create the yips for some. 

“We found ourselves in a situation where I think we completed our first nine sets. We didn’t throw a lot of footy in that time, and there was a fair bit of fatigue in the game, but we just didn’t fire any bullets because we’ve been so fixated with having high completion rates. 

“So we need to get the balance. We need to understand what our best attacking footy looks like, what our combinations are like, then make sure that we’re getting the fundamentals right so you’ve got the energy to do that, and I guess the confidence to do it. 

“We’re just in a bit of a rut, so there were some really good things there again defensively but we’re relying on that way too much.”