Newcastle Knights beat Canterbury Bulldogs 44-8 in NRL round 10 clash

WAYNE Bennett is baffled by the mystery. The mystery of how a team can be so dreadful one week and almost perfect the next.

Tony Williams

WAYNE Bennett is a satisfied coach but baffled by the mystery like the rest of us.

The mystery of how a team can be so dreadful one week and almost perfect the next.

Why the only consistency about the Newcastle Knights right now is their inconsistency.

Humiliated one week, devastating the next. You just have to shake your head.

Bennett will tell you that even after 27 years in the coaching business, he doesn't have all the answers.

But he did know how important it was for his side to bounce back against the Bulldogs, a week after their capitulation in Canberra.

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"We needed to come here today and play well," he said.

"Otherwise our season would have been under a fair bit of pressure."

But not even Bennett would have seen the performance coming.

The Knights dominated the opening 40 minutes but led just 12-8 at the break.

Then the fireworks started.

The home side scored 32 unanswered second half points, with fullback Darius Boyd and five-eighth Jarrod Mullen outstanding along with wingers James McManus and Kevin Naiqama.

The Knights forward pack as a whole dominated the Bulldogs in a manner Canterbury are not accustomed to.

Mullen's kicking game was exquisite. When he is hot, generally the rest of the team is as well.

Boyd put McManus over with a neat grubber in the 47th minute and then the fullback scored himself off an inside pass from Tyrone Roberts for a 24-8 lead after 51 minutes and there was no way back for the Dogs.

The one-sided contest wasn’t without drama. Willie Mason was the centre of a verbal stoush involving Dogs fullback Ben Barba and forward James Graham.

We'll hear more about the ugly tackle involving Krisnan Inu on McManus that led to the slanging match and the case of mistaken identity that saw Mason clash with Barba.

But it underlined the passion from the Knights' big man and epitomised the attitude of the Knights.

"We got embarrassed last weekend," Knights skipper Kurt Gidley said.

"Anytime you get embarrassed, it’s a knock to your pride. You need to aim up and that’s what I was most proud of today.

"We spoke about actions over words and it was the response we were after today."

Apart from a gripe over the number of penalties in the game, Dogs coach Des Hasler was gracious in defeat.

"I think they (the Knights) played a near perfect game of football and completed about 95 percent of their sets," he said.

"They were very controlled and very on.

"For us it was the other end of the scale."

And this from Bulldogs skipper Mick Ennis: "We know we are a good footy side. We just weren’t today."

The Bulldogs lost backrower Tony Williams with an ankle injury in the first half, while the Knights had centre Joey Leilua placed on report for a lifting tackle on Barba.

After such a dominant win, the question for the Knights now is what can we expect from them in a week's time.

If their season to date is anything to go by, it's quite likely not even the coach will know the answer.

NEWCASTLE 44 (K Naiqama 2 D Boyd K Gidley J Leilua J McManus R Rochow tries K Gidley 6 T Roberts 2 goals) bt BULLDOGS 8 (F Pritchard try T Hodkinson 2 goals) at Hunter Stadium. Referee: Gavin Morris, Jason Robinson. Crowd: 18,982.