Few teams have been mired in mediocrity longer than the Newcastle Knights, a club from a region that few dispute is the heartland of rugby league in Australia. They are built on the legend of Andrew “Joey” Johns and Paul “Chief” Harragon and so many others but have, for the better part of the last quarter-century, been an irrelevance. After one of the most compelling, controversial and climactic preliminary finals in the history of the game, the Knights are on their way to the 2026 NRL grand final just 12 months after claiming their fourth wooden spoon in 11 seasons.
Hollywood’s finest scriptwriter could not have written the story of Newcastle’s rise over the last year – and even the most creative could not have put together what will live in folklore as one of the most dramatic grand final qualifiers the game has seen. Just one season ago, Newcastle were at rock bottom. Coach Adam O’Brien was sacked midway through his sixth season.
The club had enjoyed just five winning seasons since 2003. The team had won just one finals game since 2013. They had finished higher than seventh on one occaision.
The club had endured ownership changes and false dawns and the complete loss of identity. So out of touch were the Knights with who they were, O’Brien said booing Newcastle fans “don’t know anything about rugby league”. When the Knights administration made the decision to move on from O’Brien, that incident was central to their thinking of how best to move forward.
The club needed to return to its roots. To embrace Newcastle and the Hunter, to respect one of the most loyal and knowledgable fanbases in the game. That led them to Justin Holbrook, the harshly treated former Gold Coast Titans mentor who had spent two years as a player at the club and embodied what Newcastle Knights football once was and aspired to be: local, positive, fun, tough, committed, prepared to take risks.
Within one season Holbrook has managed all that and more. If any 80 minutes could sum up how far the Knights have come under Holbrook it was Sunday’s preliminary final. Without $13m signing Dylan Brown and starting props Jacob Saifiti and Trey Mooney, while carrying Origin forward Dylan Lucas who had fractured his ankle in round 21, few afforded Newcastle a chance against a Penrith team playing in their seventh-straight preliminary final.
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