Playmakers Call On Newcastle To Find Killer Instinct During Finals Race
Newcastle Herald
Wednesday June 18, 2008
NEWCASTLE and possible NSW playmakers Kurt Gidley and Jarrod Mullen want the Knights to be more ruthless against weaker rivals in their charge to the NRL finals.
After successive losses to the Storm, Tigers and Warriors, Newcastle have responded with back-to-back away wins against the Bulldogs (22-12) and Cowboys (30-18) to climb to eighth on 16 points, setting up a rumble with the Roosters at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Sunday.But the Bulldogs and Cowboys were missing several key players through injury or suspension and despite establishing significant leads early in the second half of each game, the Knights were unable to put either team to the sword.Gidley followed Richard Fa'aoso's cannonball run to score two minutes into the second half at Dairy Farmers Stadium on Monday night, then converted to give Newcastle an 18-4 lead.But what should have been a doddle became a dogfight as the Cowboys feasted on Newcastle's handling mistakes and five straight penalties to fight back and tie the game 18-18 with 10 minutes to go."It's getting a bit frustrating. We're not really putting any sides away," said Mullen, who fluffed a field goal in the 74th minute but scored a try a minute later to break the deadlock."It's very tough to win away from home these days, but we still need to put together a couple of good performances in a row to really get back into that top eight."Every two points is crucial at this stage of the season, so you get them any way you can and you've got to win ugly sometimes, but we really need to start putting teams away."We gave away a lot of crucial penalties and dropped balls and stuff. "We've got to learn that as soon as we score a try or do something good, we need to complete the next set."Gidley powered over for his second try four minutes after Mullen scored but was also annoyed the Knights had made life hard for themselves."I guess we were in a position to put them away after we scored first early in that second half," Gidley said. "But there were times in that first half, and the second half, where we dropped a couple of balls two sets in a row. That didn't help, and I was part of that unfortunately."Gidley was pleased the Knights were composed enough to cope with the Cowboys' comeback and still finish the stronger "but we need to get to a stage where if we've got that upper hand, we need to put a team away and we haven't really done that"."It would be nice if we could, but it's still good to string a couple of wins together. Now we need to start stringing three or four wins together," he said.The Knights take on two of the five equal leaders in successive weeks the Roosters on Sunday then the Sea Eagles at Bluetongue Stadium on June 28 and will be without their Origin stars for the Manly match.Newcastle then face a series of games against teams, including the Dragons, Panthers, Sharks and Eels, who they will most likely be jostling with for places in the bottom half of the top eight.Captain Danny Buderus was more forgiving than Mullen and Gidley, saying the Knights were still establishing combinations and would continue to find their way through trial and error as they developed their own character."It's a bit frustrating but, at the end of the day, you've got to realise it's an inexperienced team and sometimes we do some silly little things," he said."We've got some skilful players in the team and it always looks like we're going to offload when sometimes we should be knuckling down and playing high-percentage footy."
© 2008 Newcastle Herald