nib Newcastle Knights coach Nathan Brown spoke to the media on Wednesday following the side’s exciting one-point win over the Manly Sea Eagles on Friday.
The head coach admits his men should feel good about the victory, but there’s plenty more work to be done as they prepare to head to Canberra for Sunday’s match against the Raiders.
“The win was great and the boys should take some confidence out of it, but the reality is we’re heading off to Canberra and we’ll be underdogs again.
“Even though we were happy to get the result, I think we need to play better than we did to get a win against Canberra.
“At this time of the year you’ve got to improve.
“For us as individuals and as a group, we’ve all got to try and get a little bit better.”
Following Canberra’s Round 1 loss to the Titans, Brown made comment they were unlucky not to grab the points.
“On the weekend Canberra finished up on the wrong side of the scoreboard.
“For a side to have 40 per cent possession in a whole game in Round 1, and score five tries, that shows we’ve got a difficult task ahead.
“With a bit more ball in their hands, what a dangerous side they are.”
Brown has no doubt the Raiders will be fired up on Sunday.
“It’s their first home game and last year they had a lot of really tight losses,” he said.
“They were a game short of a grand final in 2016 so they’ve come into this year hopeful of improvement.
“I’m pretty confident regardless of last weekend, Ricky (Stuart) would have them fired up for their first home game.”
Despite the Knights only managing a handful of wins last season, the Raiders were one of those early in the season.
The Knights coach admits they’ve had some great contests with the ACT side.
“The last game last year, they gave us a bit of a touch up down there but in previous games we’ve had really tight games,” Brown recalled.
“We’re certainly in a better position than we were, but we need to win games consistently and in tight games, play consistently.
“Our ability to compete with one another and come up with the right plays will determine how good a team we become this year.”
This week the side has remained unchanged but Brown expects throughout the season there could be a number of changes.
“I’m not sure if we got it perfect or not when we used Brock Lamb, he was certainly good when he was out there, as was Connor (Watson),” he explained.
“Connor is a very different player, his competitiveness and defence was great and then he went to nine and took some pressure off Slade (Griffin) which was great... both Brock and Connor on the field seems to make us a formidable team.
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