KNIGHTS TOO STRONG FOR TITANS

Tony Delany

2008-08-12

The Coal & Allied Newcastle Knights have maintained their position in the top eight with an impressive 32-12 win over the Gold Coast Titans at Skilled Park.

The Knights were ruthless in attack and showed signs of a side gathering momentum at the right time of the season, opening the scoring in brilliant fashion and against the run of play in the 16th minute.

Adam MacDougall created space for his outside support to send James McManus down the touch line – McManus finding Kurt Gidley backing up on the inside to score under the posts.

The Knights made it back to back tries shortly after when Jarrod Mullen initiated a blind side raid with a long cut out ball to Adam MacDougall who backed himself to score the visitors second try.

Blockbusting centre, Junior Sau continued his recent run of form with another fierce display of hard running, terrorising the Titans defence and capitalising on a Jarrod Mullen chip kick in the 24th minute, beating Preston Campbell to the try line to make it 16-0 Newcastle’s way.

The Titans' managed to get on the board late in the first half with a well constructed second man play to send Jordan Rapana over and leave the door ajar for a hometown revival, trailing 16-6 at the break.

If the door was left ajar for the Gold Coast it was swiftly slammed closed when Knights captain, Danny Buderus created an opportunity on the short side with his trademark dummy half play, creating space for Cory Paterson who offloaded to Sau, spinning his way out of the Titans defence.

Paterson featured in the Novocastrian’s next attacking raid when he brushed of the attempted tackle of Josh Lewis, handing Newcastle a 26-6 lead.

Newcastle continued to control the tempo with options either side of the ruck and dangerous fringe running.

Kurt Gidley extended Newcastle's lead in the 73rd minute with a flat ball for Cooper Vuna to cross in the corner. Cory Paterson again impressed with another successful conversion on a difficult angle to make it 32-6.

The Gold Coast gave their 15,136 strong crowd something to cheer about when Brad Myers scored off a kick from Titans rookie, Jordan Rankin in the dying seconds of the match to make it 32-12 and hand the Knights their 3rd successive win in as many starts.

Knights Coach, Brian Smith was satisfied with his sides performance but remained realistic of the task ahead.

“It's not an easy place to come and I know they are down on some troops but so are we and we’re happy to come away with the win.”

“In saying that we need to be a whole lot better if we are going to beat Canberra, I caught their second half yesterday and they are a very physical side.”

Titans' Coach, John Cartwright identified Newcastle's forward dominance as the key to the match.

“I just thought they were a lot stronger than us, I thought they dominated us in the play the ball.”

“We gave away tries in patches like we have done for the past couple of weeks, but they just seemed to be stronger in those effort areas”

Newcastle will look to continue their charge to the semi finals when they face an in form Canberra side on Sunday in the National Capital.

 

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