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The Gold Coast Titans have built on an early lead to take a 20-point win over the hapless Newcastle Knights at Hunter Stadium, further improving their chances of locking down a place in the finals.
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Despite the Knights coming out of the gates at a high pace, playing with plenty of energy, it didn’t take long for their defence to be found out and within the first 20 minutes the Titans had laid on three unanswered converted tries.
Newcastle played better after that right until the end of the game, but never looked like cracking the Titans’ line or getting ahead in the match. In other words, they were in the contest but not much more.
The Titans forwards paved the way right throughout the game, with Ryan James playing a huge match from the start. He got the Titans off to a flyer, making huge metres each time he touched the ball and with support from Greg Bird, Luke Douglas and Agnatius Passi, the Knights defence found them hard to stop, especially early in the match.
The Saifiti brothers had a solid impact off the bench though for the Knights and were a big reason they were able to get back into the contest. Unfortunately, Trent Hodksinon didn’t stand up with kicking or passing and the Knights struggled whenever they did get field position.
On the other hand, Tyrone Roberts and Jarryd Hayne both did their jobs solidly, not spectacularly but it was still enough for the Gold Coast.
The first try of the game was through Ryan James who ran onto a short ball, aiming at the uprights and he wasn’t going to be stopped, with defenders falling off the tackle and allowing him to crash over easily.
The next try was just a few minutes later with Chris McQueen running straight through a hole out wide after Tyrone Roberts took on the line and dropped a ball on the inside for him – again it was a soft try.
The final try for the Titans in the first half was to Ryan James again just ten minutes after his first, crashing over through a little better defence, but again nowhere near enough to stop him.
The Knights then started to even the contest, but never looked like scoring before Nathan Ross ran onto a David Mead pass with an intercept and ran the length of the field to score.
At the halftime break, there was no question the Knights were still in the contest, but struggling to hang on and needed a turnaround in the second half.
Unfortunately some silly options, errors and giving away penalties hampered their progress through the early going of the second half and the Titans, while not capitalising on opportunities, did enough to hold their lead.
The Titans will be worried though – they had a lot of ball and plenty of opportunities but could only run up four tries against the worst team in the competition this season – in short, when the finals come around, if they make it, their level of play is going to have to increase dramatically.
Luke Douglas would score what turned out to be the final try of the game in the 49th minute crashing over under the uprights off a penalty. He took the quick tap and caught everyone by surprise, diving through the defence and once he got that close there was simply no stopping him.
The Titans would turn down an opportunity at penalty goal with 15 minutes to go, but took it up in the closing stages as they were unable to score, and would increase their lead to beyond three converted tries.
A solid win for the Titans, not one they will be overly impressed with though and still plenty of pressure on them moving forward ahead of a crucial game with the Panthers next weekend.
Final score
Newcastle Knights 6
Gold Coast Titans 26