Worst Nightmare for Newcastle Knights
Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien criticized his team’s lack of patience and poise after a 28-12 loss to Canberra at McDonald Jones Stadium on Thursday night.
After a whirlwind finish to last season, when they built a 10-game winning streak that culminated in a 30-28 extra-time victory over the Raiders in the first round of the playoffs, the Knights were out-muscled in the middle and appeared disoriented at the end of their sets.
“Our game lacked any sort of grit,” O’Brien admitted.
“We were impatient; it felt like we wanted the highlight reel, where the other mob scored four tries or whatever on the final play, and they were scrappy tries, but that’s what they wanted.
“They wanted to come here and get into a fight, which I don’t believe we did, and we learned a lesson about what wins the first month of football.
“That’s a high completion rate and working hard all the way to the end of the set without looking for an easy way out. So I think it’s pretty easy to dissect.”
The Raiders performed as expected, finishing at 90% compared to Newcastle’s 66 and making only six errors to Newcastle’s 15.
Knights captain Kalyn Ponga was well contained and made some unusual handling errors, stifling several attacking opportunities.
“We were not patient. We know the type of team Canberra is, and that’s how we needed to play tonight, but we didn’t,” Ponga said.
“I believe ‘Coach’ summarised it fairly well. That is how it felt, to be honest. We made too many errors in the first half.
“I felt like when we controlled the football, we controlled the game, but yeah.
“I thought we started the second half well, too. When we held the ball and completed sets, I felt in control of the game, but then small things changed momentum.
“They were scrappy, they were gritty, and we weren’t.”
O’Brien believed the Knights had lost their way after a Tyson Gamble try was disallowed in the 24th minute due to Tyson Frizell’s obstruction of Canberra hooker Danny Levi. Levi collided with Frizell as he attempted to catch a running Ponga in the middle of the field.
Though the Raiders received the penalty, which resulted in a Zac Hosking try, they also lost Hudson Young to the sin bin for 10 minutes due to Young’s late contact with Ponga, but the Knights were unable to capitalise on their extra man advantage.
Frizell scored off a Gamble pass just before Young returned, reducing the deficit to 8-6, but the Knights were out of sync for the majority of the second half and were unable to build or sustain pressure.
Levi, Xavier Savage, and Jordan Rapana tries in a 20-minute span helped the visitors build an unassailable 22-6 lead with 10 minutes remaining.
Both teams had several tries disallowed, but O’Brien made no excuses, implying that the Raiders stewed all summer over their finals defeat at the same venue last September, whereas the Knights may have overreacted to his pre-season back-slaps.
“The disallowed tries had nothing to do with our problems at the moment,” O’Brien said in a statement.
“There are some things that we need to take responsibility for, so I’m not going to sit here and complain about them.
“The other mob was good.” They’ve spent their summer fantasizing about returning here, and we’ve had a great summer – and I’ve probably told them too many times about how wonderful it was – so I don’t need to do it anymore.”
Enari Tuala, a Knights winger, suffered a quadriceps strain shortly before halftime, putting him in doubt for the game against his former club North Queensland in Townsville on March 16.