The pre-season 2026 thread

I think our forward pack is fine
8 Saf
9 Smith
10 Mooney
11 McEwen
12 Lucas
13 Crossland

14 Graham/Arthur
15 Croker
16 Frizell
17 Saulo

That leaves Hola, Crouch, Elijah, Francis, Cant, Hopwood and Jones in NSW Cup
 
Lynchyknight said:
I think our forward pack is fine
8 Saf
9 Smith
10 Mooney
11 McEwen
12 Lucas
13 Crossland

14 Graham/Arthur
15 Croker
16 Frizell
17 Saulo

That leaves Hola, Crouch, Elijah, Francis, Cant, Hopwood and Jones in NSW Cup
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That bench is still awful, Frizzell has sucked for a couple of years now.

I'd have in Hopwood for Croker personally. Find someone else for 13 and move Crossland to 14, and have neither Graham or Arthur.
 
I mean... no team played worse footy than the Knights this year. Do not blame anyone in the media for taking a "I'll believe it when I see it" stance. Particularly if it's true that we're pot committed to a halves combo with a cumulative average of about 100 kicking metres per game lmao wheeeeee.
 
Certainly a bold choice considering the last 5-6 years of vlandys-ball has done nothing but shown everyone that having a bloke who can kick the ball into next week is a cheat code.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
I mean... no team played worse footy than the Knights this year. Do not blame anyone in the media for taking a "I'll believe it when I see it" stance. Particularly if it's true that we're pot committed to a halves combo with a cumulative average of about 100 kicking metres per game lmao wheeeeee.
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To be fair we played that bad thanks to AOBs absolutely garbage *** tactics.

He was way to busy trying to copy other teams tactics rather than come up with his own and it hurt us badly because we couldn’t play like prime Storm or prime Panthers.
 
Well we apparently expect Sharpe to turn into Hughes next year, and Sandon Smith into Cameron, so it seems like the days of us copying other teams are coming to a middle, not an end.

Look sorry to be a downer but I am just not falling into the trap of getting excited about this team, or getting defensive towards people who correctly describe us as a pretty rancid team that plays awful footy. If we’re persisting in an approach to the game which was one of the main reasons for this I’m not sure why I should have any optimism whatsoever. Bottom four.
 
Totally, I’ll start expecting good things if we start winning games next year, but I’m not feeling hopeful. The forward pack looks weak as to me, and we won’t be playing any attacking champagne footy if we’re going backwards every week.
 
Yeah we are light on in the forwards it’s a glaring weakness. We need to be surprised by some of the new forward signings and one or two of the young boys really stepping up.

Brown is playing behind one of the best forward packs right now.
 
We are very much an unknown quantity for 2026.

I really don’t want to tempt fate, but I’m struggling to see how we could do much worse than last year.

Am I expecting miracles? Absolutely not.

But season ending injuries to arguably our 3 most potent players in Ponga, Sharpe and Lucas. A dreadful attacking ‘plan’ with next to no halves creativity. Saf missing games and Leo phoning it in most weeks.
I can’t see how we 2026 could be worse.

I think we have a few players with something to prove.
Ponga has to be disappointed with the last 2 years.
Brown has to be burning to prove everyone wrong.
Sharpe and Smith with some healthy competition for a halves spot.
Mooney and Paulo
 
Lucas is close to our best forward now.
He was a big loss last year.
Frizz and Saf have been better, but they are getting on and Lucas is hitting his peak.
It would be very handy if Crouch, Mooney and Hopwood all have break out years, as well as McEwen and ESL continuing to improve.
 
Of course we could go worse, every team could go worse. Having a few unlucky injuries last year doesn’t give us immunity on injuries this year either. These talking heads have to pick someone for the spoon. Not many would’ve had us there last year and we got it. The Raiders were among the favourites for it and ended up winning the minor premiership.

Neutral/non-biased fans will look and see Thompson for Mooney as a downgrade, Brown as an upgrade in talent for the halves but in a role he's perceived as being bad at, and where Sandon Smith will even play as a question mark (if he even registers at all, how highly he's viewed on here is quite different to the neutral view on him to begin with). It's great to have optimism and believe most of these things are going to work out perfectly but it's not really a mystery why some would still think we're going to struggle.
 
I don’t really get why people are surprised by others picking us for last. They were horrendously bad last year.

Even when fully fit they played awfully. It wasn’t until the Manly game they started to resemble a competent team but unfortunately that only lasted a few weeks until Sharpe, Ponga and Lucas were injured.

If non-Knights fans were to look at our Top 30 squad, they’d mostly say they didn’t even know who half of them were.

Then there’s the handful of players that have always been fringe first graders up until now
Mooney
Smith
Saulo
Gamble
Jones
Croker
Hunt

So yes there’s now a decent spine and outside backs but the only real known ‘big name’ middle is JSaf, and there’s plenty that don’t rate him. Not to mention he’s missed quite a lot of games the last two years. Not exactly the forward pack Brown is playing behind now with NZ.

I think Holbrook will be a big improvement on AOB. However, we didn’t hire Bellamy, we hired a guy who coached the Titans and had a 38% win rate. All in all, I can see why other people wouldn’t rate us.

Frankly anyone who saw this game couldn’t be blamed for thinking we should be kicked out of the comp. https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSy5vKQjY/
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
I mean... no team played worse footy than the Knights this year. Do not blame anyone in the media for taking a "I'll believe it when I see it" stance. Particularly if it's true that we're pot committed to a halves combo with a cumulative average of about 100 kicking metres per game lmao wheeeeee.
Click to expand...
Sandon Smith has a whopping 3 kick metres average more than Dylan Brown when playing 80 mins at halfback. I actually think Brown has good fundamentals and a decent boot on him, he just doesn't want to take up that role it seems. His short kicking game is decent though, something Gamble/Hastings/Cogger were quite awful at.
 
The talking heads always seem to talk us down, every year, good reason to I guess we are a sure bet to struggle most years.

All I hope for next season is a changed attacking structure and some luck with injuries. Then see where we are at.

A team of average players but with good attitude can go pretty well with a few high end players sprinkled in. A team of stars can look pretty ordinary if they are off the boil.

Plenty can happen in the course of a season, not saying we are going to win the comp or anything, I just want to watch a team I look forward to watching instead of embarrassed by.
 
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