Knights 2026 preview: Holbrook needs to solve halves headache

It’s a new era in Newcastle, with Justin Holbrook coming in as head coach to guide the club away from its latest wooden spoon season, but many of the same halves questions — and worries over a healthy Kalyn Ponga — still remain.

Last year was, to put it mildly, brutal. No one had the Knight finishing in dead last, but somewhere in the middle of the season, something snapped in the Hunter club, and everything fell apart. Adam O’Brien was sacked (probably a few seasons too late), some two years earlier than his contract had suggested, and the Knights looked for new horizons.

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Holbrook is that for the beleaguered club looking to rediscover its identity. The first thing he’s going to have to fix ⁠— and this Sporting Base writer does think he can, long-term ⁠— is the team’s woeful attack. The Knights finished with 338 points across 27 regular-season rounds, a clear low mark, and likely the major reason they walked away with a fifth spoon.

Maybe the worst thing I read about this 2025 Knights team was in a FOX article just recently: Through the last-placed campaign, Newcastle “held scoreless in 14 different halves of football.” That’s a particularly painful statistic considering they only played 48 all up. That’s 30%, right there.

There’s plenty to hope for the long-lasting Knights faithful, though, with Dylan Brown coming in as a halves gun they’ve been missing for some years, and Raiders prop Trey Mooney, a young gun exploding now.

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But Brown’s introduction into the team sets up the biggest question that the recruitment team has still failed to answer: The Knights have struggled for years and years and years off the back of no problem ⁠— there’s been no true no.7 to pair with gamebreakers like Kalyn Ponga, Bradman Best, and Dylan Lucas. Brown may play seven, but he’s a five-eighth by trade, and that just continues the problem.

Those in the club have looked to Fletcher Sharpe, another young gun that excited through ‘25, as a solution and mail from training is that he’ll start at halfback, but that’s another patch-up job that’s certainly gone very wrong in the past. Until the Knights find an heir to stars like Mitchell Pearce and, further back, Joey Johns, they’re going to struggle to go much further than fringe finals.

And then there’s this year, specifically, where a soft forward pack and a period of great change means a ‘pass’ mark for the Knights will be not finishing dead last again. We think they can do that, but it’s going to be close.

Predicted side: 1. Kalyn Ponga 2. Greg Marzhew 3. Bradman Best 4. Dane Gagai 5. Dom Young 6. Dylan Brown 7. Fletcher Sharpe 8. Jacob Saifiti 9. Phoenix Crossland 10. Trey Mooney 11. Jermaine McEwen 12. Dylan Lucas 13. Tyson Frizell Bench: 14. Sandon Smith 15. Harrison Graham 16. Lachlan Crouch 17. Matthew Croker 18. Elijah Salesa-Leaumoana 19. Pasami Saulo

Coach: Justin Holbrook (first season)

Biggest loss: Leo Thompson Biggest gains: Dylan Brown, Trey Mooney

First five: Cowboys (Vegas), Sea Eagles (A), Warriors (H), Bulldogs (A), Raiders (H)

Last year’s finish: 17th

Predicted ’26 finish: Spoon battle (14–17th)

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Unibet odds: Premiers: $101, Top 4: $17, Final 8: $16, Most Losses: $4.25