Hindsight can be a wonderful thing . . . just ask Knights prop Korbin Sims.
Sims concedes he found it difficult playing 12 matches off the bench in his debut NRL season last year.
Deep down he wanted to test himself in the run-on team and he struggled with the concept of starting on the interchange.
Fast forward one year though and the Gerringong-born bookend credits that learning experience for his impressive form this season.
"Wayne (Bennett) used me on-and-off last year, which was frustrating at the time," admits Sims, who has made 360 metres and scored a try in his four matches to date.
"But now I look back on it, I’m definitely grateful for the opportunity that he gave me last year just to get that little bit of a taste.
"It made me more hungry coming into this season and I think I’m starting to show that with my impact off the bench."
Sims says the entire playing squad has been affected by the team's slow start to the season.
He believes an inability to play for the entire 80 minutes can be blamed for their disappointing opening to the year.
"We expect so much of ourselves, especially from our finish at the end of last season," he says.
"I don’t know, we just haven’t found it yet.
"We are finding it in patches of games, but we just can’t seem to put it together for 80 minutes.
"We put it together for the first 50 to 55 minutes of the game, but at the backend of the game we decided to switch off and that’s when the Broncos capitalised on it."
Asked what the Knights need to do to beat the table-topping Bulldogs, Sims' answer was simple.
"We’ve just got to bring our belief," he says frankly.
"We’ve got to believe that we can win.
"We had a really good training session today, so I’m confident that if we can turn up on Saturday we can do a real good job against them.
"We have a good record against them, with three wins last year, so I’m confident we can get the job done."
