After the siren: Lachlan Fitzgibbon

It was a tough night for the nib Newcastle Knights on Saturday they went down to the Parramatta Eels in their trial match played at Maitland’s No.1 Sportsground.

A sell-out crowd turned up to catch a glimpse of their new look Knights team, and even though there were no prizes for winning forward Lachlan Fitzgibbon told Knights TV after the match that the team was disappointed with the result.

“We were expecting a little bit better than that, it just wasn’t our night,” commented Fitzgibbon.

“It wasn’t for any points, we will be better for it and in two weeks’ time we’re going to rectify that and hopefully get the win.”

The 24-year-old admits the visitors were a quality side and were just too good on the day.

“They’re a top four side and it’s always good to verse top four sides,” Fitzgibbon stated.

“They exposed some things that we can definitely look at and work on now for next week.”

The forward maintains they’ll have a number of areas to address before Round 1 kicks off in a fortnight.

“When I watch video there’s always areas I can improve in the game,” he said.

“We didn’t see much ball tonight and we were a bit under the pump in defence, so we’ll see what washes out and we’ll go from there.”