While it has been a challenging season for the Knights, the rugby league fans of Newcastle have been overwhelming in their support of the Club and shown that their true colours will always be red and blue.
Despite sitting in 16th place on the table, the Knights are up the other end when it comes to crowd attendances with an average of 15,028.
“I think everyone would agree that the fans have really stood solid by the group this year off the back of so many losses in a row,” head coach Nathan Brown said on Wednesday.
“We definitely need to try and play for our fans.”
The capitulation against the Penrith Panthers in the second half last weekend was one of the lowest points of the season, and Brown is eager for the team to make amends in Round 24 against the Gold Coast Titans.
“There’s been performances where our boys can hold their heads up, but the other day was different,” he said.
“Every time you run onto the field you advertise yourself as a player and you advertise your Club. Then we’ve got our fans that we’ve got to make proud, and that’s what probably made me a little more disappointed the other day.”
While plenty of focus inevitably falls on Jarryd Hayne this week as the Titans come to town, Brown is more interested in focusing on all of the cogs that have been working together to have the Queensland club sitting in eighth place.
“The Gold Coast aren’t where they are because of Jarryd Hayne, they’re there because of Greg Bird, David Shillington, Chris McQueen and the rest,” Brown explained.
“All of these good, hardened forwards that have played a lot of NRL football and obviously their young halfback has played really well.
“Jarryd Hayne is the icing on the cake, so we would expect him to have some impact on the game but obviously from our point of view we don’t want too much impact.”
