It has been a long time coming, but elation swept over the nib Newcastle Knights camp after they were able to grind out a seven-point victory against the St George Illawarra Dragons.
“I am stoked, I am so proud of the boys,” Daniel Saifiti told Knights TV in the sheds after the match.
“It was nail biting for me so I can’t imagine what it was like for the fans.
“As soon as Hokko (Trent Hodkinson) got that field goal, I was pretty relieved and I’m happy with the win for the fans today.”
While in previous games things haven’t gone the way of the Knights in the second half, this time Newcastle stuck it out until the end.
“It is probably something we haven’t done in a couple of years,” said Saifiti.
“In the past we would have lost that game but we toughed it out and we can show how much we’ve improved over a period of time because we wouldn’t have got that win before.”
Saifiti praised the work of his fellow forwards going down the middle.
“Proud of the boys today, we stuck in there, the middle stuck in,” he said.
“We did the same thing last week but we didn’t get the result... this week we did it and our classy plays got us a win so I am very happy.”
The forward maintains it’s a major confidence booster going into their clash against the New Zealand Warriors next week.
“It is going to give us confidence but not over-confidence,” Saifiti commented.
“We are going to do a review Monday and Tuesday and see what we did.
“At the end of the day, we didn’t play our best footy but we played tough.
“Next week we’ve got a hard game as well so if we play like that but if we play tough, it will suit us.”
