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Opinion
The Newcastle Knights didn’t get to celebrate Easter this year, going down to the St. George Illawarra Dragons 22-13.
This was an unfortunate loss for our team but not as unfortunate as losing three players – Mitchell Pearce, Tex Hoy and Kurt Mann.
Despite great wins in the Hi-Vis jersey, many of us are thinking it’s cursed.
As a Knights fan, despite playing with only one man left on the bench, I truly admired how we never gave up. There was a time that the Knights would have given up and let the opposition just kill them. We’ve got 20 games left for the year and we will be back.
One thing I still urge to the Knights fans to do is to remain patient. I know I have said this numerous times but to be realistic, our system isn’t just going to randomly flourish with all the work need to be done.
All the teams with a great system needed it to be built. To make one thing clear, we are not in the rebuilding process anymore, we have successfully completed that. In 2018, the rebuilding was complete and now in our second year under Adam O’Brien, we’re building towards a much more winning culture.
The culture we need as a team to succeed. I know our past two losses may contradict my point but you’ll not go through a season undefeated.
To be a constant powerhouse team, we need to build the players platform and keep on building it. That doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long gruelling process with years of hard work and labour. Everyone has to do their part, whether the coaches, players and fans.
The coaches do their job and the players play their role. As fans, our role is to cheer the players on when they need us and that is with every game – regardless the result.
It’s not like all the biggest businesses in the world actually started off as big as they are now. Think of Bill Gates. He begun Microsoft from his garage and with all the hard work and effort he put into his company, as well as uniting with Apple in 1997, he succeeded and is now one of the richest in the world. The combination with Apple saved them from bankruptcy. How is that related to the Knights? It’s simple, don’t rush the process and let it build over time.
I know we all want success now and it’s not a quick process but take a look at the Penrith Panthers. Phil Gould’s “five-year plan” may have taken longer than five years but now they’re one of the best teams of the modern era and favourites to win the big one. Why? Because they built the platform and now they are aiming to bring in the success that comes with it.
The Newcastle Knights are building it and we will get there. I know we have a lot of naysayers but screw what they think. We have once been there before.
The Newcastle Knights’ glory days of 1995-2003 were great, despite winning only two premierships, all but one of those years I mentioned saw us in the finals. We will have a new set of glory days.
Next week, we have the Titans and even though all odds are against us, I wouldn’t write us off. With our minds to it, great execution and the will to win, anything is possible.
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