Newcastle’s fearlessness has put Penrith on notice and made Holbrook coach of the year
The Knights didn’t steal it, they took it
Newcastle’s victory at Eden Park was one of the great finals ambushes, but calling it an upset cannot be allowed to obscure how it happened: the Knights went after the Warriors and broke them.
Before 53,000 screaming supporters, against a side that finished in the top two and narrowly missed the minor premiership, Newcastle played without fear. The Warriors might have been statistically superior, yet the Knights ran harder, attacked Wayde Egan, won the collisions and looked far more dangerous with the ball, particularly early in the second half.
Phoenix Crossland drove their defensive line speed and produced three or four game-saving moments, including his control of a contested loose ball when panic would have been the easier option. Kalyn Ponga was enormous, Fletcher Sharpe was outstanding and Newcastle did not have a bad player.
They occasionally forced the issue and invited trouble, but their scramble kept rescuing them. That is what finals football demands: not perfection, but the willingness to turn up once more when your lungs and legs have already filed a formal complaint. I think it was the best game of the finals series so far, and Newcastle thoroughly deserved it.
Holbrook has performed the season’s great coaching overhaul
Holbrook’s achievement is bigger than one famous victory because he has completely changed Newcastle’s footballing identity. I had Ivan Cleary as coach of the year; I don’t anymore.
Last season, I think Newcastle scored the fewest points in the competition, collected the wooden spoon and were not even contesting their own attacking kicks. Now they are playing electric football, shifting early and trusting Sandon Smith and Sharpe to change angles, ball-play and use their kicking games, with Ponga, Bradman Best and Dane Gagai waiting outside them.
That transformation has not come through safety. Newcastle have taken risks all season, and Holbrook has built enough confidence for structure and instinct to coexist rather than fight over the steering wheel. His plan against the Warriors was particularly sharp, moving the ball away from a middle power game I regard as among the toughest in the competition.
The result is a team playing freely because expectation has disappeared. Nobody expected Newcastle to survive the opening two weeks of the finals, which is precisely why they have become so dangerous now.
Newcastle’s unheralded pack has grown teeth
The Knights’ young forwards are no longer promising understudies; they are winning finals against hardened packs.
Cody Hopwood, a 20-year-old Newcastle junior, started in the middle and delivered alongside Lachlan Crouch, while the unsung Matt Croker again got through his work without demanding a trumpet fanfare afterwards. Francis Manuleleua and Jermaine McEwen, Newcastle’s modern-day Bash brothers, did not produce their customary line breaks but proved something more valuable: they could roll up their sleeves and match the competition’s toughest pack.
That steel is being modelled by Tyson Frizell, whose toughness remains criminally underrated. He leads through action rather than speeches, and I reckon the standards he sets in training and on game day are priceless for those young forwards.
Then there was Dylan Lucas. After badly injuring his ankle in round 21 and appearing virtually no chance of returning this season, he came from the bench and was thrown into the middle for roughly 12 or 13 minutes. He looked to emerge unscathed, giving Holbrook a wonderfully versatile bench weapon for Penrith.
All this is happening without Dylan Brown, Jacob Saifiti and Trey Mooney. That is not depth surviving. It is depth becoming a strength.
Penrith can be beaten, but not at their own game
Newcastle can trouble Penrith, but only if they resist the temptation to become conservative now that the grand final is within touching distance.
The Panthers have reached seven consecutive preliminary finals because their pack has been the benchmark and they devour opponents who volunteer for a set-for-set grind. Newcastle cannot win that contest. They must shift the ball, involve their outside backs and keep putting Ponga on an edge, where his speed, passing and deception can ask questions that attritional football never will.
There are vulnerabilities: Nathan Cleary has a bad right foot and Isaah Yeo has a torn pectoral muscle. Newcastle, meanwhile, arrive with no pressure, no expectation and a wave of momentum that grows each time somebody explains why it should have already crashed.
Their execution must improve because Penrith will punish the forced passes that the Warriors could not. Yet changing the style would be madness. Gagai remains a major weapon at 35, having dominated his personal battle with Latrell Mitchell a week earlier before producing the flick pass for Dominic Young against the Warriors.
The Knights must reach another level. Their great advantage is that they appear reckless enough to try.
The Warriors’ season rose high, then failed its biggest test
The Warriors overachieved across the regular season, but their finals campaign was a failure. Both things can be true, however uncomfortable that makes the post-mortem.
They remained in minor-premiership contention until round 27, only to exit in straight sets after scoring one try in the first week and two against Newcastle. Their halves were pedestrian when control was required, while the attack lacked the creativity to break down Newcastle’s edges. The last-play short-side move involving Egan and Mitch Barnett captured the confusion: at minimum, a half needed to demand the ball and manufacture a kick contest.
Barnett had moments he would want back, including the short-side charge and another last-tackle kick, but his desperation came from investment rather than indifference. He leaves for the Brisbane Broncos as one of the Warriors’ best forwards and recruits, and his final match should not stain that legacy.
Andrew Webster has done an outstanding job, but I think he is also a brutally hard marker and will know the same formula cannot simply be rolled out again. Whether the answer lies in the halves or elsewhere among the key positions, something must change before 2027. September has exposed a playmaking ceiling, and sentiment will not raise it.
