Last time the Tigers won a season opener, Benji was captain instead of coach, so expectations were high when they rocked up for their first Round 1 game at Campbelltown since 2016. On the one hand, they had three wooden spoons behind them, and a host of new names on the park: Sunia Turuva and Jeral Skelton in the backline, Terrell May and Royce Hunt in the forward pack, Jack Bird in the later stages of his career, and Tristan Hope on NRL debut as starting hooker after nabbing a train-and-trial deal at the age of 27.

To make things even more challenging the Tigs were without half of their first-choice spine – Api Koroisau was still serving the Spoon Bowl suspension for his lift on Clint Gutherson and Jahream Bula was recovering from a shoulder reconstruction, bringing Heath Mason into the custodian role. Yet there was one new addition who had the potential to compensate for all this instability – Jahrome Luai, fresh off the Penrith fourpeat, who had been named as captain, and it was pretty amazing to see Romey take the field before the Leumeah faithful.

Meanwhile, the Knights had made finals last season, and had been second in defence at one point, but had been plagued by rotations in the halves – eleven combinations by the time they lost their preliminary to North Queensland with Jack Cogger at five-eighth and Phoenix Crossland at halfback. Crossland was now starting hooker (with Jayden Brailey on the bench), Cogger had shifted to five-eighth and Fletcher Sharpe had moved from the backline to halfback, in part to provide some running support to take the pressure off Kalyn Ponga.

In the end, it would be Sharpe’s replacement in the no. 2 jersey, James Schiller, who would deliver the greatest run of the night – the charge that won Newcastle the game late in the contest, capping off a pretty low-scoring affair, with the first ten minutes reflecting the Tigers’ unique blend of hope and frustration in microcosm. They’d score off Luai and Lachie Galvin’s first combo of the match, then only have a sole penalty kick for the remainder of the game, with no points at all after the break as the Knights ground out a two point win.

Newcastle had the first carry, with Jacob Saifiti launching himself into the fray, before Greg Marzhew won a penalty on tackle two off a high shot from Alex Seyfarth. Crossland was over halfway two plays later, Tyson Frizell marked his return to the middle with a hard charge to bring it over the forty, Kai Pearce-Paul entered the thirty up the right and Leo Thompson, in his final season with the Knights, almost hit the red zone, before Cogger launched his first kick of the game – into the sun, into the corner, and much too short.

While Dane Gagai batted it back, and Sharpe got to it, the Tigers cleaned him up pretty easily, and received their own penalty straightaway with Crossland pinged for a slow peel. Sione Fainu hit enemy territory, Fonua Pole put up his hand for a carry, now donning the 10 jersey rather than the 13, Alex Twal brought it to the thirty, May looked for an offload on the brink of the red zone, and finally Romey got his first NRL carry for the Tigs, weaving past a few defenders and sending it through Twal for Galvin to grubber into the right corner.

With Twal as intermediary, Luai and Galvin hadn’t quite linked yet, and the kick proved no issue for Ponga, who read it beautifully, dancing along the try line before making a few metres in front of the crossbars, bookending the set with a decent kick from halfway. Mason now had the first of many trials by fire as starting fullback this afternoon, copping an enormous shot from Saifiti, who waited until the very second the young Tiger returned to the ground to make contact, leading by example and channeling Newy’s best 2024 defence.

heeded the call, coming in for a massive hit as Samuela Fainu was looking for space on the left but without Saifiti’s consummate discipline. His contact was much too high, and so the Knights gifted a fresh set so late in the count that Ponga was already setting up to receive the kick. In doing so, they set the stage for the first great Luai-Galvin combo of the afternoon, along with the Tigers’ first and only try. May made the metres with a rollicking fifteen metre run on tackle one, and Galvin followed with a pass for Pole to hit the twenty.

Romey was in the spotlight now, barking out orders, and sending the Steeden to Galvin to set up more metres for Fainu, before running the ball himself, showing it from hand to hand, and then popping it on for Galvin to explore the right edge. Finally, Twal took a steadier up the middle and offloaded back to Luai, who held up the pass until everything was perfect on the left, meaning it felt inevitable when Doueihi flicked the assist on for Skelton to bang through Schiller and withstand Gagai to slam the footy onto the chalk.

The Tigers had scored six minutes in, off the first Luai-Galvin synergy of the afternoon, and better still, Doueihi booted through the two from a remarkably difficult sideline angle, straight through the posts into the afternoon sun. It wasn’t a bad result against a Knights outfit that remained largely unchanged since making it to finals footy in 2024, and yet apart from a solitary penalty kick, these would be the only Wests points of the game – a microcosm for a season that would subsist on hope and frustration in equal measure.

At least they didn’t lose the ball on the restart – in fact, a good restart was as important to this Tigers side as the try itself, as Skelton continued his glory into the first carry, and Romey was in place at dummy half to make his presence felt too. Strong runs from Fainu and Twal followed, while Mason almost found his way through late in the count, and Pole and Seyfarth delivered a decent chase to contain yet another strong Ponga collection. Still, Newcastle responded well too, with Saifiti making eighteen in his toughest charge so far.

The next passage of play would see both sides generate momentum, let it go, and find it again, without managing to put down any points in the process. Newcastle were first to take the upper hand, as Schiller got past Galvin as he was trying to return to the defensive line, Gagai brought his men into Tigers territory, Lucas dragged a couple of players into the forty, and a late Pearce-Paul offload saw Ponga break the line into the twenty and flick the footy back inside, only for Luai to knock his pass back, and recover possession for the hosts.

Even better, the Tigers got a much needed penalty at the start of the set, when Frizell channeled all the frustrated energy of that Knights acceleration into a swinging arm on Skelton. Galvin almost put Samuela Fainu through the line at the forty, and the park seemed to be opening up. Thompson may have momentarily quashed that by stopping Twal in his strides as the sun disappeared behind clouds, but the Tigs ended with their best moment under the high ball so far, as a daring Doueihi leap resulted in a rare Ponga knock-on.

The initial call was that the footy went backwards, and the late call of a Tigers scrum from the ten enhanced the sense that the game’s rhythm was with them. They headed left immediately, where Crossland halted Mason with a tough one-on-one, as Gagai piled on top, but faltered on tackle two, when Hope dummied a few times for a clumsy pass to May, who luckily managed to make some metres out of it. Hope’s inexperience climaxed on play three with a ball that Twal put down after its trajectory suggested a deep cut-out to Luai.

Now it was the Knights who had the scrum from their ten, off the first Tigers error of the night and they marched confidently up the field, thanks in part to Saifiti winning an offside penalty from Hope, who made up for a challenging couple of minutes with a courageous shot on Frizell. Yet they suffered again on the last, as Best headed left, dummied, tucked the footy under his right arm, fended off Solomona Faataape, and reached out his left for the one-handed offload to Marzhew, as Turuva surged in and knocked the Steeden back.

In real time it looked like the call of Newcastle knock-on was flagrantly incorrect, so it was no surprise that Ponga sent it upstairs for a challenge, but the replay showed that there was a case to be made that Best had rolled it into Turuva’s right hand and never quite lost contact before it came loose. The Tigs celebrated with the best offload of the game from May – on the ground, in maelstrom of Knights defenders, late as possible, and like a bullet out the back to Hope, who continued his comeback with fifteen metres up the middle.

Nevertheless, the set dissociated from there, as Galvin didn’t do much with his second run of the night, Luai’s kick was too shallow, and Skelton, who got the high ball back, was unable to replicate May’s offload back to Terrell himself. Likewise, Crossland and Ponga both glimpsed holes on the following set but couldn’t capitalise on them, the latter due to a terrific tackle from Luai late in the count. Cogger tried to compensate by booting it to the sunny corner where Mason managed to secure it, albeit facing a brutal Pearce-Paul chase.

A restlessness for points was starting to creep into the game, as both sides started to play it harder, faster and looser. May contributed ten metres four tackles into the next set, Galvin booted it at speed on the fifth and four Tigers surged in to contain Marzhew on the chase, although Newcastle hit back with a hard Thompson run that brought them over halfway on tackle two. Pearce-Paul hit the footy at speed and offloaded back to Crossland, who sent it on for Frizell to break the thirty, before Cogger flicked it on to Lucas to enter the red zone.

Just when Newcastle were peaking, however, Ponga delivered his worst kick of the night, a bland short-range grubber that Luai scooped up and sent through Hope and May to Galvin, who darted from right to left along the defensive line in his most entertaining play so far. The two halves closed the set well too, as Galvin ran it on the fifth and would have broken through on the right if not for a last-ditch Crossland tackle. Luai’s kick had enough hang time for Seyfarth and Tallyn Da Silva to ensure that Ponga couldn’t make a metre on the return.

The Knights needed a big play now and Sharpe provided it with the best Newcastle run of the game so far. Scooping the Steeden out of dummy half on tackle two, he busted through a low tackle from Pole, pivoted away from Mason, came back inside and eluded Mason a second time inside the forty, and was at the thirty by the time Da Silva got him to ground, with Heath coming in for a third shot. Gagai couldn’t quite find the offload on the fourth but was still ten out, and Cogger’s grubber was weighted perfectly to secure the dropout.

With Lucas hot on his tail, Da Silva had no chance but to bang it dead, and although the Tigers risked a short dropout, Ponga took it easily, lying back on the ground as Twal tumbled on top to garner his men a full set in the red. It was agonising, then, when Gagai dropped it cold on tackle three, having brought in Skelton to leave Schiller unmarked and waiting for the assist on his outside. The Tigs had a scrum from the ten and delivered a decent recovery effort, anchored in a couple of post-contacts on tackle three from Bird, fresh on the park.

Schiller started making up for his frustrated try with an incredible catch beneath Luai’s kick – staring straight into the sun, in the one chunk of the field that was still golden despite the growing cloud cover, amidst a maelstrom of committed Tigers defenders. Marzew then showed why he’s the tackle two specialist, hitting the Steeden at speed, trampling straight through Da Silva and offloading out the back to Crossland, in a sequence that ended up getting Best to the brink of halfway, before a short ball from Thompson got Saifiti ten more.

Frizell hit May with the same intensity as Marzhew on Da Silva but couldn’t manage the offload and the set fell apart entirely when Ponga, who had already had a spotty afternoon with the boot, sent it into touch. In the midst of this intensifying deadlock, the Tigers managed four straight offloads on the next set, from May, Twal, Mason and Galvin. Mason was especially impressive, rising out of a Saifiti tackle on one knee and stumbling through a Crossland ankle grab to get it on to Galvin, whose final offload saw Da Silva hit the ten.

On top of that, Samuela Fainu had mirrored Marzhew’s charge by leaving Cogger on the ground, and with all that adrenalin behind him, Galvin came closer to scoring than at any other point before the break. Receiving it at the ten he charged to the chalk and attempted to draw on that magnificent suite of offloads. Cogger was wise to his play but knocked on while trying to deflect the second phase, and so the Tigers had a scrum from the ten, packing four on the right, where Faataape won an offside penalty on the opening hit-up.

In such a low-scoring game it made sense to take the two, although it took the Tigers a minute to get there, and it took Doueihi to make the decision, with Luai out on the edge of the field. He booted through the penalty from an easy angle, in what would be Wests’ final points at Campbelltown today, although it didn’t feel like it as the stadium came alive for Royce Hunt’s first touch of the footy, a back-fence effort to begin the restart that supercharged the set enough for Galvin to kick on the third, straight down the middle.

The frustrated possibilities started to accelerate now, in the last ten minutes before the break, especially for Newcastle. Ponga may have skirted around Faataape to arrive at the brink of the forty, and Marzhew may have performed his tackle two best to arrive at the brink of halfway, but an inspired Da Silva hit prevented Jayden Brailey from picking up too many metres, while Hetherington put the footy down as May piled on top. Likewise, two plays after Wests left the thirty-five-metre-out scrum, Seyfarth spilled the footy forward.

Brailey wasted no time scooping it up and flicking it out to Best, who eluded a Turuva tackle to make it all the way to the ten before Bird brought him down. The Knights spread to the other wing, where Ponga popped a short ball out to Pearce-Paul, who couldn’t get the offload to the wing with Doueihi surging in and Luai joining for support. Best got another crack on the left and made it all the way to the line, the Steeden tucked into the crook of his right arm, which he freed from May on top (and Turuva on May) to plant it onto the chalk.

Unfortunately, big Terrell had already forced his shoulder to the ground and so a potential Newcastle try turned into a double movement and a penalty for the Tigers, who nevertheless turned it over on the second play for the second time, as Bird fumbled the play-the-ball to Hunt. The Knights had a full set inside the ten and a chance to make good on their last position, yet this gave Da Silva his biggest spotlight of the night, as the young hooker came in for a David-on-Goliath hit round Pearce-Paul’s waist to force the footy free.

The visitors may have made four errors from their last five sets but it felt like an age since the Tigers had left their own ten, so it was good to see Doueihi dragging four players over the red zone and May taking his eleventh run of the night for Luai to put boot to ball just shy of halfway. Sharpe responded well, taking it on the fly and fending off Galvin, only to be downed by a frustrated Hunt, as the match started to settle back into a set-for-set rhythm, with Hetherington crossing halfway on the fourth and Cogger opting to kick on the fifth.

No sooner had a semblance of normality returned, however, than Da Silva came up with a rare penalty for being offside receiving an offload – a pity, since the second phase garnered him an extra ten and came off arguably Seyfarth’s strongest run of the night, ending in four metres of striding with Sharpe and Brailey hanging on for dear life. There was a sense of déjà vu as the Knights returned to the opposition ten for a full set and an even more agonising sense of déjà vu when Best had his third and most heartbreaking disappointment.

Finding himself at the end of a left sweep on the fourth, and with Faataape beaten on his inside, Bradman had more than enough space to cross himself, but just didn’t read the play fast enough, opting instead for a no-looker to the sideline that Marzhew was never going to collect. This was the nadir of Newcastle’s first stanza, especially when Hunt responded with his best charge of the night so far, dragging the combined heft of Lucas, Croker and Sharpe a good six metres, and setting up Da Silva to dodge round a few defenders and hit halfway.

True to the chaotic spirit of these dwindling minutes, however, May coughed up an awkward Luai ball late in the next set, almost recovering it only to bang it into Gagai as he surged up out of the defensive line. Both teams had gone from frustrated to embarrassed over the last few minutes, and the tension spilled out in the final scrum of the first half, as Hunt antagonised Croker and the two butted heads, UFC-style, in what could have been an ingenious bid by the ex-Shark to wind down the last ninety seconds if he weren’t penalised.

The result of Hunt’s aggro was that the Knights got one last crack within the ten with barely  a minute on the clock – and to the delight of the home crowd, it ended with Croker coughing up the Steeden as he rose from a final Hunt tackle. It was poetic justice, footy melodrama at its finest, and Royce couldn’t get enough of it. His triumph was contagious, and this Tigers outfit deserved to feel proud of keeping any opposition to nil at halftime, although that would just make their scoreless second half even sweeter for Newcastle.

Dusk was settling over Leumeah as Skelton took the first carry after the sheds and Hunt followed by barging into a four-man Newcastle pack, almost getting his arm free for the offload, before Bird banged off Crossland and dragged three more players to the brink of the forty. A big carry from May made it a quartet of tough runs from the forward pack, and with Mason crossing into Knights territory, and Luai booting on halfway, this had been a big statement from the Tigs, who’d kept the visitors in their own end for almost ten minutes.

Schiller took the high ball deep in the corner, with Bird and Hunt surging in to keep him in the ten, and Marzhew scurried in for his second tackle magic, although this time Bird prevented him getting too far, much as Schiller struggled to make it beyond the twenty on play three. Gagai picked up an extra metre or two on the fourth by bumping off Da Silva but Luai compensated by combining with Samuela Fainu to drag him back over the thirty. Luckily, Hetherington charged a full eight with Hunt on him, his legs moving like crazy.

Still, Ponga booted it within his own end, and as the rain started to intensify, Skelton broke away from a couple of defenders and nabbed ten early on the next set. A rapid play-the-ball allowed Da Silva to assist Bird across halfway, and while May copped a staggering reception from Croker he still managed to flick the offload back to Galvin. The rain got heavier still as Luai kicked from the right edge, and with the suddenly slippery Steeden in mind, Ponga fell back on the ground, cradling the footy to his chest as Bird and Sione Fainu piled on top.

Once more, then, the Knights were working it deep out of their own end – Luai’s boot had paid dividends – and Gagai was looking for metres to compensate for the Romey smash-back on the previous set; instead, he coughed it up. Worse, the replay showed that Da Silva had got him back for bumping him off before the Luai cleanup by reaching his hand over the top of the tackle and popping the footy free. Gagai knew it too, slamming the Steeden to the turf in frustration, but with no Newcastle challenge, Wests started packing the scrum.

They swept left from the ten, as Mason reached out his arm for the offload but couldn’t find anything, before a straightener from Bird set up Galvin to pivot off the left boot and search for a passage, Luai barked instructions from behind. Taking the Steeden at speed, Hunt ploughed over beneath the crossbars, where it took five Newcastle defenders to stop him, before Gagai finally got some joy by scooping up a truncated Galvin grubber. Gagai had conceded a set then won a set, so there was a sense of the Knights coming full circle here.

This ushered in an accelerated period of play, with fast sets now coming for both sides. Two runs supercharged the Newcastle momentum – Lucas dragging Seyfarth from twenty to thirty, and Ponga taking a charge from thirty to forty, squaring up Bird and the front row in one of his best shows of leadership this evening. Cogger was confident enough to kick on the fifth and yet the Tigs absorbed some of this speed as their own too, as Faataape set the stage with a tough carry that broke one line of defence before Hetherington cleaned up.

From there, Bird dragged Frizell and Croker a couple of metres over halfway, May made twelve down the middle, and Galvin put up a high ball to the left edge, where a clinical take from Marzhew was immediately offset by a Best escort. Wests had the ball from the twenty and Luai and Da Silva quickly conferred before they launched into it, presumably to discuss the ever-intensifying rain but also probably as a moment of spinal consolidation, since it was clear that the Tigers had wrested the momentum now and needed to capitalise on it.

Luai’s instinct was right, too, since that was one of the sets that determined the final outcome, although not in the way the ex-Panther would have wanted. For the Tigs delivered one of their most focused sets now – what should have been a foolproof set. They started with three plosive plays up the middle; or, perhaps more accurately, three escalating versions of the same play, as if they could break through the Newcastle defence on sheer attrition, beginning with a tough carry from Hunt into the ten, directly before the posts.

May then simply leant further into the trajectory of this carry, driving the Steeden over the chalk in exactly the same spot, as Hetherington dove below and Croker slammed on top to narrowly avoid the try. Finally, Bird took a crack from the same location, ensuring that all Newcastle’s energy and attention was condensed in the middle of the field. This was the prelude to a visionary grubber from Luai, who dabbed it to the left edge, on tackle four, for what would have surely produced a dropout, or even four points, under regular conditions.

Cometh the hour cometh the man, as Ponga stepped up with a sequence of pure footy genius – the kind of unrivalled vision that he can unveil at clutch moments. Gathering the Steeden right on the dead ball line, he pivoted from boot to boot, taking in every possible outcome in a second, and then got outside Samuela Fainu, disheveled the defence with the slightest hint of a dummy, and crashed down just before the try line. Grace now turned to brute strength, as he reached out his arm to get the footy down beneath Fainu and Luai.

It was a big dog moment in the game – the Queensland star and Newcastle captain utterly dismantling a set that had started with Romey instructions, hinged on a Romey grubber and dissolved in the face of some desperate Romey defence. This was Ponga flexing himself as the most inspired player on the park when he’s achieving his very best, and it rejuvenated the Knights, who now, finally, had their first tackle in enemy territory since the break, as Pearce-Paul crossed halfway, although they wouldn’t deliver anything more on this set.

That was fine, since entering the opposition half was achievement enough at this stage, and a critical part of the comeback to follow. Still, the away fans must have been frustrated when Hetherington was downed comprehensively by Bird before some promising left edge action – Best offloading to Sharpe just before being dragged into touch – dissolved into the non-chase on Cogger’s kick. Nevertheless, Ponga’s rhythm-changer had been incredible enough to act as a reservoir of energy for many sets to come; for now, they had the flow.

There were some decent moments on the next Tigers set, especially a quick play-the-ball from Pole with nobody at marker, allowing Da Silva to make over fifteen metres to clear the opposition forty. But just as Ponga had defied Luai’s boot to put Newcastle back in play, so Kalyn now did the splits to take an over-deep Romey kick in goal, bringing a rested Saifiti to the brink of halfway on tackle two. Ponga’s vision proved the final catalyst a play later, when he crossed into Tigers territory and sent it on for Lucas to make the run of his life.

Receiving it halfway down the park, Lucas danced through a Pole ankle tap, eluded Gavin at the forty, easily outpaced Bird on his outside and stampeded off the right boot to get outside Mason too. From there, he made an even more lateral pivot off the left, changing the angle of his run so abruptly that Luai, who flung out an arm to stop him, simply sailed into space. He was veering so vertiginously that he looked like he must fall over when he came off the right to get back inside Mason, having also escaped Da Silva off the left too.

Forty-five metres later, and five metres from line, he was downed by a desperate Galvin ankle tap with Bird piling on top, but he showed the Tigers he could play it every bit as quick as Pole, rising to his feet and capitalising on a Wests defence in total disarray – Galvin was still on the ground – for Sharpe to dodge past the scattering of Da Silva, Bird and Turuva for his twelth try in thirteen games. Ponga bookended it by adding the extras and we were back to a two point game, all of it stemming from Kalyn capitalising on a second poor Luai kick.

Croker plunged into the shoulder of Bird to begin the restart, Marzhew barely broke the twenty on tackle two, and Pearce-Paul got the metres rolling on play three, when the force of his contact flung Luai’s head gear to the ground, Cogger flicking it cheekily out of the field of play. This was nadir of the game for Romey, and by the time he returned to the fray, Saifiti had made eight hard metres through Seyfarth to ensure tPonga was over halfway for a mini version of Lucas’ run, beating a few Tigs and turning 360 in search of the offload.

He couldn’t find the second phase but he still made it to the thirty, so the home crowd breathed a sigh of relief when Turuva trapped Lucas’ kick, giving his men space to reach halfway relatively early, with Pole taking on Crossland to arrive five shy and Mason completing the move into enemy territory. It was the right moment for the halves to combine, and so Galvin showed it, pivoted right, pivoted left, and offloaded back to Luai, who in turn second phased back to his five-eighth to continue his searching, questing run.

The spectacle of this exploratory Luai-Galvin linkup, their best combo since the first quarter, continued when Luai delayed the pass on the last for Galvin to grubber, and yet that made it all the more deflating when Ponga brought it back into the field of play again, and made it look even easier than last time. Scooping up the Steeden just behind the try line, he disposed of Galvin’s grubber even more clinically than Luai’s, barging through Doueihi to plant it down a metre within the field of play. The Tigs had to prove themselves now.

They did well to keep Cogger within the thirty for the next set and even better to garner a close-range set of their own, as Mason surged to halfway on tackle one, and Saifiti remained down, kneeling in front of his goalposts after having charged into Seyfarth’s shoulder. The redhead brought it thirty-five out, Luai popped it on to Pole to hit the twenty and Galvin grubbered again, only for Gagai to read the richochet beautifully and prove he could scoop it up every bit as effortlessly as Ponga, with Saifiti now down on both knees in backplay.

No sooner had Best bumped of Faataape to pick up a few extra metres, then, than play paused for Saifiti to be taken off the park. When the set resumed, Ponga restored the rhythm with a high ball that defied Mason, winning Newy a full set in the twenty. They shifted it right on tackle zero, where only a low desperate Luai-Pole combo prevented Gagai crossing, and played around with a Thompson-Twal shot in the middle, before Ponga glanced right but passed left to Frizell, who found Seyfarth and Da Silva waiting for him.

Kalyn had done so much to shape the last ten minutes that he was keen to take on the line himself, and so he attempted to bust through on tackle four, copping a swinging arm from Pole and making the audacious decision, at 8-6, not to take the two on the cusp of the final quarter. With a ninety second break while Newcastle were making their mind up, the Tigs were able to summon sufficient defence here – especially Mason, who delivered an incredible ankle tap on Crossland to prevent him having room to reach out the Steeden.

For a moment it looked like Ponga might again wrest order from chaos, as he brought an overlong Thompson ball back from beyond the twenty and around to the left edge, but things started to fall apart when Brailey lost the ball back to Cogger, and then decelerated further as Da Silva became the next casualty of Seyfarth, clutching his eye after the two smashed heads in a tackle. Hope was back on, the Knights had one tackle left, Sharpe tried to break through then booted it back inside, and Pole took it and won a penalty off Frizell.

There was an argument to be made here that Ponga had been reckless in denying the penalty kick and yet the sheer audacity of that decision had a similar trickle-over effect to his gymnastics with Luai and Galvin’s grubbers, although it would take a few sets for the Knights to fully exploit it. In the meantime the Tigers had lost Seyfarth for an HIA, leaving Samuela Fainu the last man standing from the three-way friendly fire that had also felled Da Silva, bringing Bird back onto the paddock as they lauched into a respectable recovery set.

Pole got them rolling again, Bird showed his freshness by notching up a couple of post-contacts right away, and Twal was over halfway by tackle three, before Bird put his hand up for a second carry, receiving an inside ball from Galvin to arrive at the brink of the forty, where he was halted by a tough individual shot from Lucas. Galvin ended with a well-weighted high one but again Ponga was up to the task, taking it right on the chalk and holding his ground as Doueihi slammed in, attempting to roll him back for the dropout.

Still, this was a challenging set positionally for the Knights, as Schiller also played the ball right on the line on tackle two and even Marzhew was unable to escape the ten. With Cogger’s kick restricted to the thirty, the Tigs got some much-needed position as Skelton eluded Jones, fresh on for Crossland, shrugged off a Sharpe grab, and reached halfway on tackle one. Both of the new wingers stepped up on this set, as Turuva brought it inside the forty, and with Pole making his tenth run, the hosts had their best position in some time.

With 42-17 missed tackles they needed it too, and for a moment it looked like Luai was going to find space up the middle, but the gap closed and Jones made up for his miss on Skelton by cleaning up Twal as he entered the ten. The halves combined, as Luai popped it on for Galvin to grubber into the left corner, and finally Lachie’s boot defied Ponga, who had no chance of bringing it back with Skelton on his heels. Kalyn went short with the dropout, Schiller knocked it on, and the Tigs had a scrum from the ten as the sky turned purple.

Nevertheless, the next big play – arguably the best play of the game – would come from Schiller himself – as the Tigs executed a fairly lacklustre set, despite Galvin clearly making an effort to control they play. They headed left, where Gagai came in for a desperate trysaver on Skelton, then back to the middle for a Twal steadier, before the best charge of the set, as Sione Fainu dug deeper into Alex’s trajectory, driving Frizell and Jones all the way to the left padding. Yet Hope’s effort to go it alone, on the next play, was much more fractured.

In the end, Gagai read a Galvin-Doueihi ball brilliantly on the left edge, and Lucas collected Galvin’s chip to the right. While the Knights had survived, it looked like they might spend another set trying to get out of their own twenty, but that all changed on tackle two, when Schiller made a run for the ages – the match-winning run. Receiving the footy from Best, he charged into a Luai-Twal-Fainu pack at the ten, planted the left fend into Samuela, and pivoted off the left boot to elude an ankle tap from Luai and shoulder grab from Doueihi.

All this happened as he was dancing rightwards along the ten, and once he’d disposed of Romey and Adam, he accelerated to the twenty, where Skelton and Samuela converged on him but somehow failed to contain him. Giliding through as if by magic, he arrived at the forty and managed to drag a Pole ankle tap ten more to halfway. As if that weren’t enough, he played it fast enough for Gagai to pop it on to Cogger, who nabbed twenty-five more before Twal and Hope desperately brought him down, as Dane struggled to rise in backplay.

This was sublime acceleration and Ponga almost turned it into an assist with a diagonal run and flick pass for Sharpe, who looked set to score only to be downed by a Faataape ankle tap at the ten – and then looked set to score despite the tap, only for Solomona to somehow pull him back from the chalk at the last minute. The Tigers’ defence had been abysmal for Schiller and Cogger’s charges but this was the one heroic hit from the Leumeah locals. It wasn’t enough to thwart Ponga though, who already had his eyes on the left edge.

Finding himself with the footy on the last, he subliminally dummied with Galvin on his waist, so that Best had enough time to draw in Turuva and even consider going it alone, eventually offloadung with both knees on the ground, almost no lateral movement, and zero visibility on the wing. Cometh the hour cometh the man, as Marzhew executed the best single play of the game – a marvel of footwork that saw him move balletically, then bulkily, pairing the most dexterous footy genius with the barging authority that renders him so damaging.

For all money it looked like Best’s offload was going to go dead, but Marzhew somehow managed to reach out his right arm to save it from touch, and reorient and recentre his whole body while keeping his boot a mere millimetre off the sideline. Pivoting precariously in space, he could have been shoved dead by the smallest man on the park but he was quick enough to translate delicacy back into muscle, planting his left hand into Birds’ face and powering through a Turuva ankle tap to slam down the try that won Newy the game.  

From Ponga’s conversion angle the goalposts marked the nexus between the cloud and evening light hanging over Leumeah, so his aim was pretty decent, even if the Steeden ultimately ricocheted off the right post, leaving us with a two point mach and twelve minutes on the clock. The missed tackle tally was now at 48-19, while the Knights had 6-1 linebreaks, and had found their flow on the restart, with Jones, Thompson, Lucas and Frizell all adding speed up the middle third, as word came down that Saifiti had passed his HIA.

That momentum continued with Brailey hitting halfway and Cogger putting boot to ball five metres on, and the speed continued into the chase, leaving Skelton with nowhere to run as Gagai (now fine) and Pearce-Paul piled on top. Conversely, the Tigs didn’t make halfway until tackle five, Luai kicked just inside his end, and his ball proved no problem for Ponga, who lay back leisurely on the turf to collect it, supremely relaxed in his leadership, and almost welcoming the relatively mild chase; a critical late-game confidence move here.

Schiller began the next set with an echo of his superb run, pivoting off the right foot to beat Pole and Bird, rise again at the twenty, make a few more metres through a Twal ankle tap, and almost break through that as well, before managing a quick play-the-ball to set up Sharpe for a vivid charge to follow. Nevertheless, Ponga somewhat undid his last collect when he fumbled the following high ball – he was clearly frustrated with the call of knock-on – in a letoff for the Tigers, especially with Da Silva cleared and waiting to return.

With less than ten minutes left, the hosts had to find an opportunity – ideally off the combined freshness of Hunt and May, who had returned to the park, and Tallyn, who would replace Hope a few minutes later. May made an immediate impact by palming off Brailey to hit halfway on his seventh run of the night, opening up a sudden left sweep that ended with Cogger and Gagai combining to shut down Mason, much as Best surged out of the line to halt Bird when the Tigers pivoted out to the other wing, desperate to break through now.

Ponga then echoed Schiller’s sublime run, taking a Gavin kick with ease in the ten, eluding a Hope ankle tap and weaving through Faataape to finally succumb to Bird thirty-five out, ensuring that Sharpe was into enemy territory on play two, as the Tigs faced down a sobering 52-21 missed tackle differential. With that momentum behind him Cogger booted it on the third, and on the run, and the Mason-Ponga contrast couldn’t have been stronger as the young fullback took it a metre from touch, but was bundled back over by Gagai.

Newcastle now had the first of the two dropouts that would close off the game. Doueihi would go short both times and the Knights would cough it up both times, the error on this first occasion coming from Kalyn himself. With a scrum from the ten, May’s freshness was more important than ever – he was topping a VB Hard Earned Index that was otherwise all Newy (Lucas, Marzhew, Pearce-Paul, Thompson) with 8 runs, 134 run metres, 44 post-contacts and 24 tackles to his name – but he couldn’t get beyond the red on play two.

Luckily Samuela Fainu made it over thirty on the right, followed by Twal on tackle four and Luai on halfway, yet no sooner than Romey hit Newcastle’s end than he offloaded through Pearce-Paul for a bouncer that Galvin could have easily dived on but instead attempted to tunnel ball through his legs – a high-concept, high-risk play that ended with a knock-on, in possibly the most frustrating Wests halves combo of the night, although, to be fair, it was Galvin’s showiness rather than Luai’s vision and competence that was the main issue here.

The Knights now had a chance to put an end to the game, and Hunt knew it, roaring in for a massive shot on Thompson in an attempt to rattle the footy free. Still, Cogger was at the ten on the fifth, in the middle of the park, leaving the last-tackle option to Ponga, who came up with a beautiful pair of plays – the first a double pump for Pearce-Paul to smash all the way to the chalk, the second a desperate legs tackle on Mason, who had managed to scoop up Kai’s subsequent offload but now found himself dragged over the line for the second time.

Doueihi went short again, Best lost it this time, and with that double dropout failure to motivate them, the Tigs had one last burst of energy, mainly in the first half of the set, when some quick thinking from Thompson prevented Turuva from bursting into space, and a May-Luai offload set up Da Silva to almost clear halfway. Hunt notched up three post-contacts from Croker and Brailey, and May put up his hand for it again on the fifth, but with Seyfarth surrounded the set fizzled, and Doueihi’s cramped grubber was Wests’ final whimper.

This was the last big moment of the game, as the Tigs failed to garner enough position on their final set to attempt the two-point field goal, although the culminating image was Ponga curling himself around the Steeden with six seconds to go, capping off eighty minutes of captaincy that had been often inspired, occasionally messy, and as grittily fought as most of Newy’s victories in the back end of the 2024 season. They would have wanted more than a two point win here and would be looking for a big home game over the Phins on Thursday.

On the other side of the Steeden, this was a sobering season opener for the Tigers, especially at Campbelltown, but a two-point loss wasn’t that terrible, all things considered. Romey and Galvin had enjoyed a few moments of spark, most notably that first try, and with virtually half the team new on the park, it would inevitably take a few weeks of first grade for combinations to solidify. They’d be looking for a big win over Parra for their first battle of the west, and they’d receive it too, with a 32-6 win to make up for tonight’s loss.