The Newcastle Knights have recorded their eighth win for the season, defeating the Gold Coast Titans at home by six points on Saturday afternoon.
Final score
Newcastle Knights 30
Gold Coast Titans 24
The Newcastle Knights host the Gold Coast Titans in a match that, all things considered, probably won’t have much impact on the top eight.
Join The Roar for live scores from the match in Round 19 of the 2018 NRL season on Saturday afternoon at McDonald Jones Stadium, starting from 3pm AEST.
With seven games left to come the Knights and the Titans find themselves at 11th and 12th on the NRL ladder respectively.
The Knights have a 7-10 record, while the Titans are only a win behind them, having a record of 6-11 to this point in the season.
For Newcastle the season has seen significant improvement on last year when they won the wooden spoon for the third consecutive year.
They only won five matches in total last year so have already made it an improved win total and have plenty of time left to improve further.
The Titans have also improved a bit – they were second last in 2017, although they finished that season with seven wins, so still need at least one more this year to match that total.
Despite being outside the bottom four, both teams have really quite unimpressive points differentials – the Knights are -144, the worst in the league, and Gold Coast are -113, the third-worst in the league.
The last place Parramatta Eels on -134 are the only other team to be triple digits in the negatives for point differential.
After winning five of their first eight, Newcastle’s form has dropped off in the last couple of months – they’ve only won two of their last nine and both of those wins came against Parramatta.
The Titans have lost their last two on the trot, but had two wins in a row before that, against the Bulldogs and the Tigers.
Join The Roar for live scores from the match between the Newcastle Knights and the Gold Coast Titans in Round 19 of the 2018 NRL season on Saturday afternoon at McDonald Jones Stadium, starting from 3pm AEST.
Peter Beckwith
Roar Rookie
All in all I thought that it was a fairly ordinary game. I am certainly not suggesting that it was a BAD game, just not compelling. As a Knights fan I am pleased with the result but the game was not as watchable as the final scoreline would suggest. Yeah, I know. You could say that I'm hard to please and I have no defence for that. Having said that, there was some good performances from Watson and Barnett.
Graham
Guest
the forward pass rule seems to be just there to bring a bit of randomness to the game. There are a couple of dozen forward passes missed every week and half of the ones that are called aren't forward Knights got away with a lot of time wasting to take the sting out of the titans late onslaught. Pretty naive by the refs to allow it.
KenoathCarnt
Guest
Can definitely understand why Wallace was angry about it and rightly so then got penalized for it absolutely rediculous...
Emcie
Roar Guru
that one
Mordac
Guest
"Dubious" is one way of putting it. Utterly ridiculous is probably more accurate.
Mordac
Guest
This kind of thing is endemic. Such calls never go against the Broncos or Roosters unless it's for the Broncos playing the Roosters. Poorer, struggling clubs really cop it.
KenoathCarnt
Guest
The one from Wallace?
SteveSyd
Guest
Funny the refs pulling up titans for forward passes after their blind eye for the roosters last week. Joke
JOHNY BULLDOG
Roar Rookie
The score says it must’ve been a good game buddy,exciting at least
Emcie
Roar Guru
That was a dubious forward pass call...
Emcie
Roar Guru
Either that or there's nothing worth talking about
JOHNY BULLDOG
Roar Rookie
Thought it was my technical difficulties Emcie?
Emcie
Roar Guru
No blog today?