Elimination Final - Knights V Raiders - Sunday 10 September 4:05pm - McDonald Jones Stadium

Match result

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  • Poll closed .
Best has pulled ahead of Gagai in the try assist race - 15 to Best, still 13 to Gagai after not getting one for 4 games now.
Best is 9 ahead of his best ever season total of 6. Gags still needs 1 more to equal his 14 in his last year at Souths.

Ponga has 21 try assists - 7 more than his previous best of 14 in 2021
 
Not trying to talk down Gags, but it's interesting that his best season for try scoring (11) and try assists (14) was 2021 in his 12 year career.
Best is sitting on 13 tries and 15 try assists in 2023 - and Gags has never defended like Best has this year - so at 21, Best is having a better year than Gags has ever had, and by any measure, Gags has had an elite level career.
 
I think Gagai has been our best outside back this year and he’s had the best season of his career. We rely very very heavily on early set carries from the back 5 and Dane has been arguably our most valuable player on that front, yes even over Marzhew, both by the eye test and the numbers. 170 running metres per game is an astounding effort for a guy with basically no kick return metres all year to pad his numbers. So often we’re going nowhere in yardage and his ability to pinch 20 metres or so out of nowhere is rivalled only by Brian To’o and it’s an invaluable skill, particularly in a close game like yesterday’s one. Best is often quite good at this work rate stuff but fairly inconsistent and the least valuable of our outside backs overall on this front. He’s defended very well this season but I don’t think he’s so clear of Dane or even necessarily better on the year as a whole that I’d rate him higher.

I’d also be very careful about just pointing to direct try involvement stats and saying they prove player X is better. Lachlan Ilias has more tries + try assists than Hastings or Gamble this year, I’m going to take a wild guess that most of us wouldn’t be keen to swap either of our halves for him though.

Also in general teams score more tries on the left than on the right, particularly playing off elite attacking five-eighths or fullbacks who, again, tend to be left side dominant far more often. Alex Johnston has scored 30 tries in a season twice in his career, doesn’t mean he’d score more tries than Dom Young if he played right wing for us next year. Likewise right centres tend to get fewer tries and assists than left centres.
 
Are you being serious or just trying to stir? KP single handedly dragged us out of the **** and got us back into the game.
JOJO82 said:
Wake up, if we didn't play our injured players we don't win.
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JOJO82 said:
Are you being serious or just trying to stir? KP single handedly dragged us out of the **** and got us back into the game.

Wake up, if we didn't play our injured players we don't win.
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I’m not saying he didn’t help pull us out of the ****. I’m saying he helped put us there. He was tentative in defence early (as would be expected), and similar in attack.
It wasn’t until he made that tackle on Rapana that he got a bit of confidence, and that was later in the game.
One saving grace was that he was able to pretend it was his shoulder that hurt and not his head right at the end.
And you can’t argue that Hastings re-****ing his ankle affected our attack.
I’m not picking on the players, I am saying that we don’t need to rely on a penalty goal at the end of extra time to win if we had fit players in deck.
Disagree all you like. Hastings not playing out the half and Ponga’s defence are facts.
 
Lefty said:
Wighton will probably get suspended for a few weeks.

It was obvious that Gamble had been bitten, At the very least should have got a penalty. It was inexplicable that no action was taken against Wighton apart from putting him on report.
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I reckon they didn’t want to sin bin him or send him off so it couldn’t be said that that decision cost the raiders the game. It was obvious to everyone he was bitten and the fact he’s been referred straight to the judiciary would say the same thing
 
Grug said:
Disagree all you like. Hastings not playing out the half and Ponga’s defence are facts.
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You thinking Ponga defended poorly is the very opposite of a fact. You’re entitled to your opinion but I’m not sure what Ponga could’ve done differently in defence yesterday. I note he missed two tackles. One of which would’ve been one of his best defensive contributions in a Knights jersey when he brought Rapana to the ground but didn’t get a hold of him.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
I think Gagai has been our best outside back this year and he’s had the best season of his career. We rely very very heavily on early set carries from the back 5 and Dane has been arguably our most valuable player on that front, yes even over Marzhew, both by the eye test and the numbers. 170 running metres per game is an astounding effort for a guy with basically no kick return metres all year to pad his numbers. So often we’re going nowhere in yardage and his ability to pinch 20 metres or so out of nowhere is rivalled only by Brian To’o and it’s an invaluable skill, particularly in a close game like yesterday’s one. Best is often quite good at this work rate stuff but fairly inconsistent and the least valuable of our outside backs overall on this front. He’s defended very well this season but I don’t think he’s so clear of Dane or even necessarily better on the year as a whole that I’d rate him higher.

I’d also be very careful about just pointing to direct try involvement stats and saying they prove player X is better. Lachlan Ilias has more tries + try assists than Hastings or Gamble this year, I’m going to take a wild guess that most of us wouldn’t be keen to swap either of our halves for him though.

Also in general teams score more tries on the left than on the right, particularly playing off elite attacking five-eighths or fullbacks who, again, tend to be left side dominant far more often. Alex Johnston has scored 30 tries in a season twice in his career, doesn’t mean he’d score more tries than Dom Young if he played right wing for us next year. Likewise right centres tend to get fewer tries and assists than left centres.
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Gags was playing left side for Souths between Johnston and Walker when he had his best ever year in 2021. People still talk about that as being the most deadly edge in recent times. He couldn't have had a sweeter gig.
 
I'm still buzzing after yesterdays game.

I'd put that atmosphere against any rugby league atmosphere ever, grand finals included.

Most games you get some of the crowd for one team, some for the other. This was near 100% Knights. What a special night.

The pre game with Morgan Evans singing Long live the Newcastle Knights. Whole crowd singing along.
Early stage of the game and then the quiet when we went behind.
Whitehead throwing the ball away in to our in goal and Marzhew trying to hit him from 20 metres away with his NFL style throws.
Whitehead noticed and they had a little battle going for a bit there.
Biting incident and the crowd just going feral from then on. Booking anything Raiders.
The Whighton's a Wayne Kerr chant.
The poor Raiders drummer effectively just drumming for the Knights chant as no raiders chant could be heard.
Getting the win and the crowd just going crazy jumping up and down, haven't seen that since being at the SFS in 97' as Albert crossed the line to score.
The singing after the siren to the music, the whole crowd singing along to the songs like a giant party.
The booming Newcastle chants throughout the game, pre-game, post game, well after the siren, in the back of the grand stands on the way out.
That bloke who brought a raiders head with a sword through it complete with blood.
On field interviews after the game was like we had won the GF with the crowd going nuts.
Securing 10 wins in a row for the first time in the clubs history!

Truly one of those games to remember and be saying yep, I was there when the Knights beat the Raiders that day.
 
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Kurriboy said:
I'm still buzzing after yesterdays game.

I'd put that atmosphere against any rugby league atmosphere ever, grand finals included.

Most games you get some of the crowd for one team, some for the other. This was near 100% Knights. What a special night.

The pre game with Morgan Evans singing Long live the Newcastle Knights. Whole crowd singing along.
Early stage of the game and then the quiet when we went behind.
Biting incident and the crowd just going feral from then on. Booking anything Raiders.
The Whighton's a Wayne Kerr chant.
The poor Raiders drummer effectively just drumming for the Knights chant as no raiders chant could be heard.
Getting the win and the crowd just going crazy jumping up and down, haven't seen that since being at the SFS in 97' as Albert crossed the line to score.
The singing after the siren to the music, the whole crowd singing along to the songs like a giant party.
The booming Newcastle chants throughout the game, pre-game, post game, well after the siren, in the back of the grand stands on the way out.
That bloke who brought a raiders head with a sword through it complete with blood.
On field interviews after the game was like we had won the GF with the crowd going nuts.

Truly one of those games to remember and be saying yep, I was there when the Knights beat the Raiders that day.
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A great post, thanks Kurriboy!
 
I'm not getting on the gags hype train. The eye test for me he hasn't been overly that impressive as other have stated. His still doing the pinball thing but doesn't really make metres doing it like he used too. His foot is clearly a hinderance to his style he likes to play.

The dolphins game the first time was the only time I seen that look in his eye. Other then that his just been doing his job.
 
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