With the 2018 season over, Nathan Brown has swiftly shifted his attention to next year.
More specifically, the nib Newcastle Knights coach has focused in on the Club's recruitment.
With Jack Cogger leaving for Canterbury in the summer and Brock Lamb also departing, the Knights are in need of a back-up for Mitchell Pearce.
Pearce spent a large chunk of the season on the sidelines with a torn pectoral.
Brown said that if the No.7 was to go down in 2019, they need to be in a position to better cover for the loss of someone his caliber.
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"We lost Pearcey, which had a huge effect on us as a club and then the playing group. It left a lot of younger players in key positions," he said.
"For next year, we need to look at the way we recruit so if Pearcey's not playing next year, we need to make sure that we're a better team if he's not playing.
Coggers' last game in the red and blue
"It certainly exposed some areas where we need to look in our recruitment as well."
The Knights finished the season in 11th place on the ladder.
It's a huge improvement on three straight wooden spoon finishes but Brown knows that the Club was capable of finishing higher if not for a horror run of injuries.
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"We're a long way ahead of where we were this time last year, there's no doubt about that. (But) I don't think any club's been affected with injuries to key players like we have," he said.
"Our halfback, hooker, five-eighth missed more than a third of the year in those positions. With what we didn't have out there in key positions, I think we didn't do too bad.
"But we also know there's a couple of real key areas from a recruitment point of view we need to get right and also from the way we play, we can get a bit better at as well."
