The pre-season 2026 thread

Yeah next years predictions. When do we put that thread out? Will wait till after trials. Going to Vegas could be tough. But I think we are more chance of beating the Cows in Vegas than Townsville! If we didn’t get a heap of injuries we don’t get the spoon this year. Next year the same unless another disaster with injuries again.
 
Kempy is tipping us to come last again next season.
That's a strangely poor prediction from Kempy. We won the spoon with essentially the same squad we played finals with years previous. The reason we won the spoon was because the team was completely different due to injuries.

And if we're being honest, the boys proper threw the towel in in the most overt way.

Next year we've brought in seriously talented players in key positions where we needed them. Injuries aside I'd be disappointed if we weren't challenging for the 8.

Do I think we have the middles to play finals footy and make a go of it? Probably not. But that's a little different to winning the spoon. Kempy exposed himself with that one
 
I think next year these teams are bottom 8. I do have Newcastle in there. Early prediction I think St George get the spoon.

Saints
Cows
Knights
Tigers
Titans
Manly
Bunnies

But, it really comes down to our fit the squad is through the year. Look at the Warriors, they were cruising then the had injury in two key positions, prop and halfback.
 
They have no information to go on.
As far as I know we don't even have our training staff on board yet, which is crazy, because they should be doing the work of designing our fitness training regime right now.
In short, no one can rate us, because no one knows what we are doing.
I assume there is plenty happening behind closed doors, but no one knows.
 
They have no information to go on.
As far as I know we don't even have our training staff on board yet, which is crazy, because they should be doing the work of designing our fitness training regime right now.
In short, no one can rate us, because no one knows what we are doing.
I assume there is plenty happening behind closed doors, but no one knows.
Yeah you’re completely right, no one should be making predictions now. Scrap my previous post! 😅
 
It does worry me that we don't have everything in place for next year yet, and to top it off we have players coming back later than others. It might just have to be a bit old school and just have the players be as fit as they can be and just go out there and show off some of the natural talent that we have.
 
New coaching administration. They're definitely getting their stuff sorted. Within days of being appointed Holbrook had selected/identified his key assistants. That was weeks ago.
 
At present our roster has been overhauled and we have new players arriving, our new head coach has arrived, Peter Parr and Chris James will move to their new roles on 1 November and POS will continue working on recruitment and our roster.

We have seen reports of assistant coaches who are likely to be appointed. We need the new assistant coaches to be appointed very quickly, if they haven’t already and a Head of High Performance and other new football staff to be appointed very quickly and for all of them to hit the ground running. In short we are hoping everything falls in place in time for the start of the pre-season training.
 
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Most people will have them getting the spoon because they were putrid last year and nobody gives enough of a **** about Newcastle to take a look at the roster properly.

Any time they’ve made the finals in the last few years most people assume they’ve overachieved and predict them to be bottom 8 the following year

Until the Knights do something to change peoples perceptions, like regularly appear in the top 4, the majority of people will continue to pick them bottom 4 because they’re widely considered a joke at best and completely irrelevant at worst

I’d imagine they’ve made even the most neutral fan despise watching them play because of how painfully awful they were last year
 
I cant believe there were real Knights fans who've watched everything happen the last 6 years and thought it was best to keep AOB on for next season.

Also beggars belief that the club needed a ****ing spoon in order to sack that idiot.

In all fairness we are a joke. And it's well earned, though I reckon we'll turn that around next year. We've got so much fire power, it'll feel like 2010 again.
 
Sharpe is a genuine superstar in the making. I don’t think he should be first choice in the halves. But the experience he got this year in that 5/8 position will pay dividends later in his career. Now he has speed to burn.
 
He tipped Canberra 13th-14th and us in 12th-13th at the start of the year in his predictions. He didn't pick a side to come last in his season preview. Unless he did a 180 on his SEN show.
Oh, my mistake. I thought I saw on a reel a few weeks ago that he and a few others called them for the spoon.

Still a bad prediction nonetheless lol
 
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