NRL 2020: Newcastle Knights’ Sione Mata’utia looking to end long NRL finals drought
Nodoby at the Knights has been waiting for a return to the finals longer than Sione Mata’utia – and the club’s longest serving player has described the incredible feeling of finally making the cut.
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The Knights have been waiting seven years to get back to the finals - but nobody has been waiting as long as Sione Mata’utia.
The 24-year old isn’t just Newcastle’s longest serving player, with 120 games to his name he’s the most capped Knight in the club’s history who has yet to play a semi-final.
Last week’s win over Cronulla guaranteed Newcastle will play finals for the first time since 2013 and Mata’utia is hell bent on getting there.
“We had a Fox Sports finals shoot, I saw it on the calendar and I said to my missus ‘in seven years I’ve never seen this’,” Mata’utia said.
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“I was so excited. It’s all new to me at the moment – that word ‘finals’ is getting tossed around, I haven’t heard it at the club before.
“I’m so excited for it, and it’s good I get a few more games heading into it to build up for September footy.”
There’s nobody left at the Knights from the 2013 side that went all the way to the prelim - in fact, only four current NRL players (Darius Boyd, Tyrone Roberts, Dane Gagai and Joey Leilua) have pulled on the red and blue in a finals match.
Mata’utia was still just 17 then, playing in the Under 20s - but when the Knights are going well, everyone in Newcastle is a part of it.
“I was in the 20s, playing before the boys, and before our last game you’d see all the jerseys around town,” Mata’utia said.
“We’re a one-team town, and we’re a footy town. It was such a vibe, I couldn’t believe this whole community could buzz just off a footy team. It’s pretty special.”
Back then, Mata’utia was a footballing weapon, one of the best prospects in the game and a prince among Knights.
He debuted towards the back end of 2014, scored seven tries in seven games and the Knights won five of them. They missed the finals, but the future was bright and Mata’utia was the brightest part of it.
At the end of the year, Mata’utia became the youngest Test player in Australian history, pulling on the green and gold five months after his 18th birthday.
For the next season, Mata’utia’s three brothers, Peter, Pat and Chanel, all came home so they could play together and be part of Newcastle’s golden future.
Wayne Bennett was in charge, and he never fails. Nathan Tinkler’s money was a bottomless pit. It was supposed to be the start of something.
What came next was a hellscape, three years that set a new standard for rugby league misery. Bennett left town, Tinkler’s empire collapsed and the Knights won three straight wooden spoons.
Players came and went at a frightening pace, but not Mata’utia, never Mata’utia. He stayed, always, and at one stage he captained the team at 21, because there was nobody else who could.
“I’m proud to have that next to my name. This is a club I wanted to play for since I was a young fella,” Mata’utia said.
“It was tough at times, like in 2016 when we only had one win, and it looked dark for a little bit.
“But I’m proud I get to stay at this club longer, and I’m grateful they wanted to keep me here.
“It’s not fun losing like that, and the toughest thing was for the fans. We spoke about it after every loss, how we let them down.
“There were some days when 20,000 would show up.
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“There were a lot of lessons learnt, and it’s good to see some of the boys stick around from those days.”
It didn’t happen overnight, but after things got their worst they finally began to get better - first when the Knights signed Kalyn Ponga, then again when they landed Mitchell Pearce and David Klemmer. Now, Mata’utia, the Saifiti twins, Mitch Barnett, Josh King and Lachlan Fitzgibbon are the only survivors from the torturous 2016 campaign.
Perhaps the biggest change for the Knights was getting Adam O’Brien as coach because from O’Brien’s first day, Mata’utia could tell things were different - there was no talk about rebuilding, or about getting the right players around them. O’Brien wouldn’t have it. Rebuilding was over, it was time to win again.
“When Adsy came on and demanded what he did, probably day one. That’s when we knew we had to start digging - he said we had a team to make the finals,” Mata’utia said.
“Years previous it was more about rebuilding the club, getting the right players around the young fellas.
“Because he said that, and he’s been there so many times before, he knows what he’s talking about and to hear that was the stepping stone.
“For the three, four years before Adsy came here it was about getting the Klemmer’s here, getting the Aidan Guerra’s here to come in and help the boys.
“We could do it - (Nathan Brown’s) last year I thought we could have made the finals and given it a good crack - but when Adsy came in and said those words, I was like ‘damn, this is it, the coach means business’.
“That was it, that was the moment when I thought we could give it a good crack this year.”
So much that was supposed to happen for Mata’utia, and for the Knights, never came to pass.
Mata’utia himself hasn’t played for Australia since he made history in 2014 and he hasn’t played Origin either – those days on the wing seem so far away, and he never did get to play first grade with all three of his brothers, who all left the Knights some time ago.
Peter still plays in Super League with Castleford, Pat is running around for Maitland Pumpkin Pickers and Chanel is a youth worker in Newcastle.
“They all have families and kids, so they’ve turned into dad bods,” Mata’utia said.
“They’re going well, I’m really proud of how they’ve transitioned into working life after footy, because it can be hard.”
Nowadays, Mata’utia is a battle-scarred backrower, a young veteran at 24, and his career was threatened by a run of concussions in 2017. Things were supposed to be one way, but they turned out another
But that doesn’t matter now. Everything that’s happened to Mata’utia has brought him to this place, right now - he’s paid his dues a dozen times over and he’s ready to do whatever it takes to run out in a Knights jersey and, by God, play some semi-final football.
“I’m proud of myself, but I’m also proud of the town,” Mata’utia said.
“They deserve for us to make the finals, they stuck with us through some dark periods and it’s good to finally see some positive things happening for the club.”
The top four might be gone, but finishing fifth or sixth earns the Knights a home final, which would almost be bigger than making the finals itself. Since their last premiership in 2001, the Knights have only had one finals match at Macdonald Jones Stadium and that was 14 years ago.
True love is finding someone who cares about you the way Newcastle cares about the Knights, so it may as well have been a lifetime - if not for the coronavirus restrictions, they’d already be camping out for tickets.
Come game day they’d paint their faces and hang from the rooftops, the hill would be a red and blue madhouse and they’d howl “Newcastle, Newcastle” until they had no voices left and do all the other lunatic things we do to show our football teams how much we care about them, because this will be it, this is why they kept showing up when things looked their darkest.
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This is why they stuck around, and it’s why Mata’utia did as well, to see the Knights jersey back in the finals, back playing when it really counts.
For so long, they’ve been playing for nothing but pride and now they’ve got something to really be proud of.
“I have goosebumps running down my leg (thinking about it),” Mata’utia said.
“It would be crazy - just thinking about it makes it crazy. They’re talking about letting in a few more people, which would be great especially at home.
“I can’t wait to see what the crowd will be like, and the town.”
It’s only a couple weeks away. But Newcastle has been waiting for seven years and Mata’utia has been waiting his whole life. What’s another few weeks?