The "Mark My Words" Thread

Knights to improve significantly (not hard).
Tommy Cant develops into a quality workhorse and becomes a fan favourite.
First coach sacked will be Loz when Billy Slater out-coaches him...again.
 
Lefty said:
Knights will win a third premiership. Please note there is no timeframe for this prediction!
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If the Knights don’t win the premiership this year, it will be a quarter century since we last won the premiership.

I can’t see any reason why the Knights will not win another premiership. We are financially secure now, so it should just be a matter of time.

Whenever we do win our third premiership, it will be great!
 
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I think the club has made some firm steps to move back to what brought us success 97 and 01.

- Rely heavily on development within the club through pathways
- extending junior development region up the coast
- identify and keep the right talent (POS right now)
- have a good football department ( Parr and co.
- Have financial backing (Wests Group)
- Have good > excellent coaching staff

We have been moving towards this over the last years. We are already seeing local talent become NRL quality players

Dylan Lucus
Fletcher Sharpe
Cody Hopwood (soon I hope)
 
frankLauda said:
I think the club has made some firm steps to move back to what brought us success 97 and 01.

- Rely heavily on development within the club through pathways
- extending junior development region up the coast
- identify and keep the right talent (POS right now)
- have a good football department ( Parr and co.
- Have financial backing (Wests Group)
- Have good > excellent coaching staff

We have been moving towards this over the last years. We are already seeing local talent become NRL quality players

Dylan Lucus
Fletcher Sharpe
Cody Hopwood (soon I hope)
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True it is exciting, you could probably put Crouch on that list to I see Crouch as a future bench rotation prop and I believe he is one of our own we toke back from the Sharks
 
45 now and I’ve seen a lot of false dawns in the last 25 years. Club hasn’t managed to string two successful seasons in a row together since 2001, and hasn’t finished in the top four in 20 years.

Don’t have any expectations now and doubt it will happen again in my lifetime. Would love to be proven wrong though.
 
Lefty said:
If the Knights don’t win the premiership this year, it will be a quarter century since we last won the premiership.

I can’t see any reason why the Knights will not win another premiership. We are financially secure now, so it should just be a matter of time.

Whenever we do win our third premiership, it will be great!
Click to expand...
I hope you're right, but honestly with how bad we were last year, I hope we avoid the wooden spoon for a start.

Gut feeling is the 3rd premiership isn't coming until at least the 2030s.
 
jamesgould said:
45 now and I’ve seen a lot of false dawns in the last 25 years. Club hasn’t managed to string two successful seasons in a row together since 2001, and hasn’t finished in the top four in 20 years.

Don’t have any expectations now and doubt it will happen again in my lifetime. Would love to be proven wrong though.
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Got twenty years on you , how do you think I feel🙁😂
 
Things look promising for a few years ahead, plenty young talent, fwds and backs coming through.
Unfortunately the next couple will be a struggle and competition from new sides, Bears and PNG, re signings will make it very difficult.
This is a huge year for anyone wanting resigning with Knights or elsewhere meaning those showing signs of big improvement need to perform and select career paths
Again unfortunately we are in for a long tough battle to compete each week even without injuries, new Coach, new spine, lack of big strong props.
I’m hopeful but not confident we will do very well, even well.
Hopefully Coach has the right ideas, whatever they be, and that a few of our young fwds come good and that those experienced players remain uninsured.
My prediction, just miss the wooden spoon after a very up and down season
 
- Knights narrowly miss finals but with a positive F/A, as opposed to previous seasons when we’ve snuck in with a positive F/A, on the back of a bad record in close games. We finish the season very strongly with a number of blowout wins.
- Irrespective of where he starts the season, Fletcher Sharpe ends up being used as a backline utility and plays mostly centre and wing this season. By the end of the season Dane Gagai announces his retirement and Sharpe is earmarked to step into his role.
- Kalyn Ponga plays 20+ games for the first time since 2023.
- The Dylan Brown signing is still debated by the peanut gallery by the end of the season, but he proves to be a popular player with Knights fans on account of being a half who we actually want to see on the field every week.
- Sandon Smith and Dylan Brown play 20+ games together in the halves and are extremely impressive in our late season blowout wins after a mixed track record earlier in the season.
- Dylan Lucas wins Dally M second row forward of the year.
- Trey Mooney is regarded as our signing of the season and declares for New Zealand now that there is no potential Origin penalty. He makes his International debut. We send a huge contingent players to the World Cup as Kalyn Ponga also declares for New Zealand.
- Cody Hopwood plays 18 games and becomes our most important bench forward by the midpoint of the season, crucial to our late season charge.
- The Knights become the most popular “dark horse” premiership prediction in podcasts previewing the 2027 season.
 
We’ll win 9 games at home this season and turn Marathon into a fortress.
Ponga will be considered the best Fullback in the world by years end
Hopwood, ESL and Matt Arthur will be in our best 19 by Round 13.
 
Didn’t get the impression from Holbrook’s interview that he was 100% set on it as the combo for the whole season. Vibe I got was way more “we are going to try it and see how it goes”.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
Didn’t get the impression from Holbrook’s interview that he was 100% set on it as the combo for the whole season. Vibe I got was way more “we are going to try it and see how it goes”.
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Has he been chopping and changing his view all preseason? I haven't got that vibe either, which was my point. He may well have a plan B and C under certain circumstances. I don't think we will see a revolving door of halves partnerships like we have the last few years though, injury permitting.
 
Everything I’ve heard indicates to me that he’s literally only decided to start Fletch there over Sandon in the last couple of weeks. He was only ever set on Kalyn and Dylan + Phoenix as the starter at 9 and he was using pre-season to figure out the rest. In his defence Kalyn wasn’t fit so he’s only actually been able to look at it properly recently.

And I agree there won’t be chopping and changing because I don’t think Dylan & Fletcher are going to give him what he wants/improve at the stuff they need to and he’ll be starting Sandon in the halves by round 6-8 at the very latest, injury or not. And then those will be the halves for the rest of the year.

I’ve laid out the only way I can conceive of Dylan 7 Fletch 6 working elsewhere but to be clear, I don’t think it actually will. I’ve made my piece with it and I’m trying to look at it as more “maybe this time playing 7 will expand his game when he’s back at 6” than at the negatives, but I think it’s going to hurt us early in the season.
 
All he really said is that Sharpe can play elsewhere if needed which is just common sense, don’t think he was necessarily foreshadowing anything.

I do take his decision as more of an indictment on how highly he rates Smith than as a ringing endorsement of how strongly he believes in Sharpe there. In an ideal world I’m sure he’d love to be going into the season with two bonafide NRL-quality halves and the headache of trying to fit Sharpe in around that, but he can only work with what he's got.
 
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