Newcastle Knights can’t keep blaming former coach Wayne Bennett forever
FOR three years now Wayne Bennett has pretty much copped it for everything that has gone wrong at Newcastle. Saturday is the perfect chance for the new era of Knights to finally put the past to bed.
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NEWCASTLE can’t keep blaming Wayne Bennett forever.
For three years now the former coach has pretty much copped it for everything that has gone wrong at the Knights.
Saturday is the perfect chance for the new era to finally put the past to bed.
At the start of the season many were talking the Knights up as top eight contenders on the back of a huge recruitment drive.
While Bennett’s Broncos were seen by just as many as a team on the slide, who’d be lucky to make the finals this year.
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And here they are heading into round five equal on four competition points, with the bookmakers only having Brisbane slight $1.91 favourites with Newcastle at $1.94.
Playing in front of a packed McDonald Jones Stadium, this is the Knights’ chance to show they are worthy top eight contenders — against a side who has beaten them in the past six games between the clubs.
Fox Sports Stats also show that since both teams came into the comp in 1988, Newcastle has its worst winning record against Brisbane with just 13 from 47 games.
And their last win against the Broncos was in round 25, 2013, when Bennett was coach at Newcastle.
While Mitchell Pearce was Newcastle’s hero in the opening wins over Manly and Canberra, his experience has come to the fore again ahead of Saturday’s crucial clash, simply by Pearce taking ownership of what needs to change.
After consecutive losses to Sydney Roosters and St George Illawarra, Pearce said: “At the end of the day if you don’t win you don’t win.
“It doesn’t matter if you could have won here or could have done this better.
“It comes down to a result and we are not finding a win purely because of a lot of ill-discipline and defensively we have to tidy up some stuff. “
Pearce doesn’t believe the past fortnight has impacted confidence, but highlighted areas that need improving.
He agreed line speed and better control of the ruck were crucial.
“We need to be competing harder for 80 minutes on every play,” Pearce said.
“We probably got out-competed last week against the Dragons.
“All those little areas they competed really, really hard and you get your results in NRL games off the back of that stuff.”
And while it’s not make or break time just yet, you wouldn’t want to be heading to Melbourne next week to take on the reigning premiers coming of three straight defeats.
“It is only early in the season with a new group,” Pearce said.
“The best thing is no one is running away from what we need to improve on, especially in defence.
“And everyone is really keen to get that worked on individually and then with the coaches.
“It is a really good vibe around the place.
“Everyone wants to win.
“It is a good opportunity at home to do it against a quality team.”