ROUND 3 GAME PREVIEW
The hard work is paying off for the NYC Hunter Ports
Newcastle Knights.
Two rounds into the 2012 NYC premiership and the Knights are sitting atop the table with two wins, having scored 84 points and conceding just three tries.
“It’s only Round 2 so we’ve gotta maintain a bit of consistency now,” coach Mick Crawley told newcastleknights.com.au ahead of their Round 3 clash with the Brisbane Broncos on Friday night.
Crawley indicated at the season launch that the club was focused on defence heading into 2012, and says that the pointscoring breakout is not so much of a bonus but as a result of Newcastle’s ability to apply defensive pressure.
“It comes on the back of being pretty good in defence and controlling the footy. Our completion rates have been good and on the back of that we’ve been able to score some points.”
A classic example of this was the performance of five-eighth Will Smith, who scored three tries and set up three more in the 40-0 win over the Sharks in Round 2.
“You can see with Will that he’s benefited from a pre-season with the NRL side, he’s an experienced guy, he’s working really hard on his footy and it’s showing on game day,” explained Crawley.
“He scored two tries from charge downs and they are both defensive efforts, in fact they were our first two tries and they came from them trying to kick it and Will charging them down.
“That’s just effort in defence and that’s how we’re getting our points.”
Their opponents this week are the Brisbane Broncos, a team that Crawley says he’s studied on the video in the build-up.
“They beat the Cowboys last week, and the Cowboys made the grand final last year and they are tipped to be one of the big sides, so that was a really good win for the Broncos.
“They play a bit of footy, they throw the ball around quite a bit and I think it will be a really good test for us.”
Crawley confirmed that Kurt Mann and Kailem Perkins are the new faces in the lineup against Brisbane.
The game has a late start of 6:15pm and Crawley hoped there would be a repeat of the big crowd that was at Hunter Stadium for the NYC clash in Round 1.
With a number of local boys in the lineup, make sure you get down to Hunter Stadium and watch the future of the Hunter Ports
Newcastle Knights run around.
Newcastle Knights
K Mann, C Mata'utia, D Clacherty, A Pewhairangi, J Allison, W Smith, T Rouse, K Sims, C Redman, P Vaivai, J Hill, N Clarke, T Sullivan.
Bench: A Clydesdale, M Steele, J Elias, K Perkins, L Shipard.
Brisbane Broncos
D Levi, T Lumley, Z Koitka, C Oates, J Watson, L Frisby, C Cullen, S Coombe, C Binge, D Alvaro, C Timu, B Coutts, B Malley.
Bench: K Nikorima, T Peeters, J Seage, A Adams.
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