The weekend just passed was perhaps one of the most dramatic in Australian sporting history – proof indeed that football is life.
On Saturday, in the AFL grand final, the Brisbane Lions kicked four goals in the dying minutes to run over the Fremantle Dockers. On Sunday, the Wallabies, four men down by the end of the match, unexpectedly scored a spanking 42-38 Test match win in Perth over the incumbent back-to-back world champion Springboks. But before then, also on Sunday, the Newcastle Knights achieved unexpected glory with that most Australian of triumphs: victory of the underdog.
It’s a role Newcastle has been rehearsing much of its life.
Convicts, coal and steel shaped the one-time company town with a strong working-class ethos grounded in the face of low pay, dangerous workplaces and isolation. BHP closed the steelworks years back and service industries took over the regional workforce, but a unique sense of shared identity still binds people of the Hunter.
Twice, the Knights won the NRL premiership. The last was 25 years ago. They took the wooden spoon last year, so when the team ran onto the field to meet ladder leaders the Penrith Panthers in the preliminary final, they personified the Aussie battler standing up to powerful forces, with a coach, Justin Holbrook, appointed in the shadow of their 2025 disastrous season.
The game was going as many predicted until it turned into a match for the ages: Penrith were in the lead at the break despite the absence of Nathan Cleary, who suffered a compound fracture in his ankle in the first half, but were stunned in the second half as the Knights claimed a 22-14 triumph despite being a man down due to Phoenix Crossland’s send-off for a hip-drop tackle.
The victory made grown men cry. Newcastle’s favourite sons, Matty and Andrew Johns, teared up in their respective commentary boxes. Knights captain Kalyn Ponga burst into tears at full-time.
While the rain poured down to match the tears, just getting to the game sorely tested the mettle of fans. The government added extra train services between Newcastle and Sydney for the blockbuster, only for a freight train to develop a problem at Warnervale and ruin the best-laid plans with delays and cancellations on the Central Coast and Newcastle lines.
Fans were forced to find alternate routes and replacement services to get to Olympic Park, which led to traffic jams on the M1 motorway. Stuck in gridlock, many heard the news that Cleary was off the ground and the Knights were in with a chance, and they kept coming.
It’s a safe bet Knights fans will heed the lesson and make earlier or their own arrangements to get to next Sunday’s grand final against the Sydney Roosters.
Only two teams have managed to rise from wooden spooners to premiership the following year. Two sides also won the competition from outside the four. Statistics suggest it’s a big ask.
But the Newcastle Knights fairytale victory celebrates perseverance and the fighting spirit. Australians like underdogs. It is a joyous moment.
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