Knights punish paltry Panthers 20-12

Newcastle have snapped a three-match losing streak by upsetting Penrith 20-12 at Pepper Stadium.

It was a gutsy performance from the Knights, but Penrith only have themselves to blame after another sloppy handling performance. There was no miracle comeback today like there has been in their past three matches.

The Knights led 14-6 at half-time and the margin could have been more. They bombed an overlap by throwing a forward pass in the fourth minute and a potential Shaun Kenny-Dowall four-pointer in the corner went begging.

Eight minutes later, Newcastle ran the ball on the short side and Aidan Guerra charged onto the ball to score their first try out wide.

They were in again six minutes later after Kalyn Ponga put in a deft grubber kick and centre Cory Dennis led the chase to score. Ponga played five-eighth today in a late positional switch and looked dangerous.

Penrith hit back with a try against the run of play in the 25th minute, after a jolting tackle by Corey Harawira-Naera forced ed the ball from young Newcastle fullback Nick Meaney as he was returning a kick. Young Panthers’ five-eighth Tyrone May was on hand to pick up the scraps and score under the posts.

Harawira-Naera turned from hero to villain though in the restart set, losing the ball early. The Knights made them pay in the next set with centre Sione Mata’utia charging onto the ball to score.

The second half settled into an arm wrestle before Newcastle scored with ten minutes to go after running the ball on the last. Winger Ken Sio showed his great finishing skills to put the ball down in the corner after taking advantage of a good ball from Ponga.

With four minutes to go, a fight broke out after Kenny-Dowall dived on a loose ball and resented a flop from Panthers backrower Viliame Kikau.

Four players were sin-binned for throwing punches as the situation escalated: Kenny-Dowall and hooker Danny Levi from Newcastle, and Kikau and May for the Panthers. Newcastle received the penalty from the incident.

Wayde Egan scored a consolation try for the Panthers with two minutes left, but it was too late for Penrith to mount another comeback.

Their luck has finally run out and they’ll need to fix their ball control quickly to have any chance in the finals in September.

The loss today leaves them vulnerable to dropping out of the top four if St George or Cronulla have good victories tonight.