nib Newcastle Knights Jersey Flegg coach Todd Lowrie claims the 32-12 win over the St George Illawarra Dragons on Saturday was one of the team's best performances so far.
Despite a five-hour drive down to Gerringong, Lowie said his men put on a good show against a solid Dragons outfit.
“We went down there against a good team and they’ve only lost one of their games,” Lowrie explained.
“They had a couple of people coming back in who were playing Reserve Grade and we performed really well and came away with a good win.”
In his first game for the Under 20s Tex Hoy, who replaced an injured Matt Cooper, recorded a hat-trick from fullback.
“He was really good, and they were good tries too,” added Lowrie.
“I think all of his tries were individual and he just made something from nothing.
“Tex played both trials for us and he was very good and was unlucky not to make Round 1.
“He got his opportunity a couple of weeks later, so credit to him, it’s his first game in the 20s but he’s been doing everything right so far.”
The Jersey Flegg coach was also impressed with his side's defensive efforts, seeing big improvement from their Round 1 match.
“Defence has probably been the best part of our game the last two weeks and last week it was what won us the game in the end,” he said.
“This week our goal line defence and our desperation was really good, so it’s something the guys are taking a lot of pride in at the moment and from a coaching point of view, it’s good to see they’re taking a bit of pride.
“They’re definitely reaping the rewards because the game could have been completely different as the Dragons certainly had plenty of opportunities to score and attack our line.”
Lowrie is certain consistency will be the key to continuing their momentum into the season.
“We need to keep on playing consistently to our standards,” stated Lowrie.
“We saw sometimes there were little effort areas which we need to keep improving on, just lapses at times but overall it was probably our best performance of the year.
“I was pretty happy with that.”
