Knights run rampant in Robbie Farah's return

A DARIUS Boyd-inspired Newcastle snapped a five-game losing streak to sink Wests Tigers in dramatic fashion at Hunter Stadium.

Farah Uate

A DARIUS Boyd-inspired Newcastle snapped a five-game losing streak to sink Wests Tigers in dramatic fashion at Hunter Stadium last night.

Boyd, heavily criticised since joining the Knights, was an influential figure as the Knights came from behind to beat the Tigers 38-20.

Down 12-0 after just 11 minutes and 14-0 midway through the first half, Wayne Bennett's men appeared to be a long way from an NRL recovery.

But they stormed back into the game and dominated the second half to triumph.

The game turned on an incident near the Knights tryline involving Tigers replacement forward Ray Cashmere in the 27th minute.

With his side right on top with the Tigers feeding a scrum, Cashmere was the instigator as punches were thrown between himself and rival prop Kade Snowden and was penalised. The Knights scored two minutes later through sacked Blues winger Akuila Uate and never looked back.

The Knights scored three tries in the space of eight minutes just prior to half-time to lead 16-14 at the break after the Tigers dominated early.

Robbie Farah left an early mark on the game when he was the architect of the Tigers' opening try after just six minutes.

The Tigers skipper took off down the blindside, dummied and speared between Chris Houston and Dane Gagai before giving Chris Lawrence an unimpeded run to the line with a great inside ball.

The Tigers lost fullback Tim Moltzen to a hamstring strain but a penalty from the restart after the try had them back on the attack again. And they wasted no time adding further points.

This time, Benji Marshall caught the Knights' defence off-guard when he cleverly put a grubber in behind their defensive line early in the tackle count for his winger Lote Tuqiri.

Tuqiri did the rest, swooping to beat Uate to the ball and brilliantly regathered to score.

Marshall nailed the sideline conversion for a 12-0 lead.

He made it 14-0 with a penalty goal in the 23rd minute after Knights skipper Danny Buderus pulled off a try-saver on Cashmere.

At 14-0 up and the Knights struggling to stem the flow of points, the Tigers appeared in the box seat.

But the first-half momentum swung dramatically towards the home side in the 27th minute with the Tigers feeding a scrum 10 metres from the Knights tryline.

The scrum erupted with Cashmere and Knights prop Snowden trading punches.

Cashmere was penalised and two minutes later Uate was awarded a benefit-of-the-doubt try in the corner after taking an overhead pass from Boyd.

Boyd was again involved five minutes later when he tipped on a ball from centre Timana Tahu.

In an angled run, Tahu beat three defenders to score under the posts. Tyrone Roberts converted and suddenly it was 14-10.

The Knights then grabbed the lead when Tahu scored his second try with three minutes left with Boyd again involved in the lead-up. The Tigers only had themselves to blame after Tuqiri put the ball down in front of his own sticks in a heavy tackle from Joel Edwards.

The Knights had lost five straight but their three-try burst suddenly gave them a sniff and they carried that confidence into the opening 20 minutes of the second half.

That man Tahu was in the action again just six minutes after the break.

Again it was Boyd who held up a great pass to put the Knights centre over for his third try. Roberts' sideline conversion stretched the lead to 22-14.

The Tigers weren't helping their own cause, coming up with mistakes as they tried to dig themselves out of the hole.

Boyd's influence on the game continued when he found the in-goal with a grubber kick which gave the home side a repeat-set.

This time, the Knights attacked the Tigers' left-edge defence and Marshall came up with a bad missed tackle on Houston before he crashed over.

NEWCASTLE 38 (T Tahu 3 C Houston J McManus A Uate tries T Roberts 7 goals) bt WESTS TIGERS 20 (M Iosefa C Lawrence L Tuqiri tries B Marshall 4 goals) at Hunter Stadium. Referee: Gerard Sutton, Phil Haines. Crowd: 18,637.