Newcastle’s run to the NRL grand final prompts 'pinch me' reactions from veterans and youngsters
Newcastle reached the NRL grand final this week, a moment described as a “pinch me” experience by long-serving forward Tyson Frizell and by 22-year-old five-eighth Fletcher Sharpe. The Knights advanced after an unexpected win over Penrith on Sunday despite being a player short.
Frizell, a 34-year-old who has played 305 NRL games and worn Blues and Kangaroos jerseys, had never before reached a season decider until this week. Sharpe, who grew up in the Hunter Valley, was not alive when the club last won a premiership and has watched family retellings of the 1997 and 2001 grand finals. Club identities from those eras have engaged with the current squad: former captain Paul Harragon spoke with the players earlier in the season, and Andrew Johns sent a video message before Sunday’s preliminary final and broke down in tears after the match.
Frizell said the sight of grand-final celebrations used to be hard to bear: “It usually gets switched off or I stop watching it as soon as that siren goes because – while you’re happy for everyone – it burns, those celebration of the boys.” He has played finals football for the Knights in three of his previous five seasons and described a palpable community buzz as the team progressed, noting: “When we were driving down through Wallsend [in outer Newcastle] just to get to the game, people lined the main road.”
Sharpe recounted how local memories of past Knights teams shaped his view of the club and its place in the community: “My family speak about it and tell you how crazy it was in the 2001 and 1997 grand finals.” He said seeing former players moved by the current group was emotional: “It almost brings a tear to your eye seeing legends of the game and legends of the club and how emotional they get and what it means to them for the current playing group to be back into the grand final.” Sharpe added that icons such as Andrew and Matthew Johns were the figures youngsters in Cessnock aspired to be: “Growing up they were the ‘Goats’ [greatest of all-time] of the town … and to be a part of it and into the grand final, I still kind of pinch myself.”
Justin Holbrook’s arrival as coach has been credited with changing the team’s belief after a season-threatening mid-season injury to half Dylan Brown. Knights chief executive Peter Parr said of Holbrook: “There were some doubts in the minds of a lot of people, but not the players or the coaching staff, and I think that’s where Justin Holbrook has come to the fore. He doesn’t concern himself too much with who’s not playing, he concerns himself with who is playing.” Holbrook was an assistant at the Roosters as recently as last season after his sacking by Gold Coast in 2023, and he began his coaching pathway in Dapto.
Holbrook shifted Frizell from an edge role into the middle this season, a move Frizell accepted without reservation: “[Holbrook]’s been unreal,” he said. “I was open to doing anything, I knew we had a good crop of players coming through and in different positions, I’ve got no ego. So when he said that, I was like, ‘Yep, sweet, let’s make it work.’ And then whether that was starting or coming off the bench, it didn’t bother me as long as we were the best team possible and we were winning games.”
The transformation is starker when set against last season’s finish, which ended with the Knights receiving the wooden spoon after a final-match 66–10 loss to Parramatta. Frizell framed that low point as something the squad used to restart: “We had all the control in not coming away with the spoon, and we just … it got too much, and it is what it is now. We were able to reset and use that as motivation but also just put it aside and just go, ‘Hey, what’s done is done. Let’s just have a go this year. Let’s have a crack.’”
Newcastle will contest the NRL grand final against Sydney’s glamour club, and Holbrook is regarded as particularly well placed to engineer an upset in that match. The club’s players and officials have pointed to his leadership and the squad’s response to adversity as key factors in reaching the decider.