2006 Round 9 vs Brisbane Broncos:
Newcastle 32 defeated Brisbane 30.
Newcastle came out on top of a thrilling game that to and froed - at least until the 63rd minute - in round 9. With both sides containing several players backing up from Friday night's test match the game was played at a frenetic pace, but after Riley Brown's 57th minute try evened the scores, the only further points went to what was eventually a match-winning Andrew Johns penalty with 17 minutes to go.
Brisbane came out of the blocks fast with a Corey Parker penalty, then a Tame Tupou try to lead 8-0 after 12 minutes. After dominating early possession Brisbane found space down the Knights left hand side. Brian Carney was caught well out of position and Tupou was left with an easy run to the line.
Newcastle responded soon afterwards, however, with their first real attacking chance of the game. After a few strong runs got the Knights inside the 20, Andrew Johns gave an inside ball to Clint Newton, who passed for David Seage to score next to the posts. It was Newcastle again 4 minutes later when Steve Simpson scored. Kurt Gidley busted the Brisbane defence from 20 metres out, and his offload to Simpson saw the big second-rower, backing up from Friday night, break free of some goal-line Broncos tacklers to get the ball down. After Brisbane were in control at 8-0 up, Newcastle had done well to come back with minimal field-position throughout the game.
Brisbane came back with another Tupou try not long after, however. From 30 metres out Darren Lockyer passed to the giant Kiwi and again found Brian Carney for the Knights well in-field - coming up in defence when sliding would have been a much better option. Tupou bulldozed over the top of Seage, who had little hope of stopping him, and got the ball down in the corner. Parker's conversion from the sideline gave Brisbane a 14-10 advantage.
It seemed as if that score would last until the break, but with 4 minutes left until halftime Todd Lowrie crossed for Newcastle. Kurt Gidley gave him an inside pass and he was able to break free from two tackles to put the ball down. Then with under 10 seconds left a Kurt Gidley break gave the Knights possession 10 metres out and centrefield. A quick spread to the right saw Newcastle with one man left over, and Brian Carney put the ball down untouched. Johns missed the conversion, leaving the score 20-14 at the break.
Just 2 minutes into the second stanza and Newcastle was at it again. Almost identically to the try on halftime, the ball was spread right and quick hands by Lowrie and Matthew Gidley saw Carney get his second try. Again the Johns conversion was astray, leaving the score 24-14.
This cued a Brisbane scoring spree, with three tries in 6 minutes putting them in control of the match. In the 46th minute Greg Eastwood ran a nice angle off a Darren Lockyer pass to score; in the 50th minute Karmichael Hunt's (injured during Friday's test) replacement Darius Boyd was on the end of a string of passes to get the ball down; and straight from the kick-off in the 52nd minute Casey McGuire found room and got the ball to Darren Lockyer, who ran 50 metres to get the ball over the chalk. Brisbane had regained the lead by the finish of this whirlwind of points to lead 30-24.
If it seemed Newcastle were running away with the game after Carney's second try then now it seemed Brisbane had unstoppable momentum, but stop it did when Riley Brown tied the game back up with a try 5 minutes later. With the Knights hot on attack inside the Bronco's 20, Brown put a big step on an injured Petero Civoniceva, and sprinted across to tie up the game at 30 all.
With 23 minutes left it seemed that the game could only open up further, but amazingly the Andrew Johns penalty goal was what broke the deadlock, and was the final piece of scoring. Both sides showed tremendous scrambling defence in the final 20 minutes to prevent any final points. Newcastle went closest - firstly Jarrod Mullen straight before the penalty (being hit by a line-ball high tackle by Darren Lockyer), and then a big break by Riley Brown who threw an over-extravagent flick pass for George Carmont, who wasn't expecting it and knocked on, when a more straight-forward pass would have done the job.
Newcastle would be over the moon with their win, given Johns, Buderus and Simpson all backed up from the test match 2 days earlier. Kurt Gidley had a much improved game from the last few weeks, and the Newcastle forward pack was again outstanding, with Luke Davico beginning to make his mark for the Knights. Brisbane dominated possession and territory throughout the game, so Newcastle did particularly well to come out on top. Brisbane will be scratching their heads at how they went pointless in the final 28 minutes, after looking unstoppable up until that point, but no doubt fatigue played a big role in their loss. It may not have been classic football from either side, but the big crowd of 21,252 at EnergyAustralia Stadium certainly went home entertained.
What they said:
Andrew Johns:
"It was one of those games where both teams had an attitude to attack but no team had an attitude to defence. Defence wasn't a priority today and it showed."
"I just feel so tired. Three games in seven days, it's beyond ridiculous. Players can't keep doing it. When the game's got this fast, honestly, if you sit back and look at it, it's crazy. You can't keep doing it to the players … they expect you to keep backing up and backing up. It's just too hard. I know now I've made the right decision. There's no way I could have played Origin. After the game [on Friday night] I couldn't sleep because I was on such a high."
"Some of the blokes had to get up at five o'clock on Saturday morning for their games. Three hours' sleep and you've got to play that night - you can't do it."
Danny Buderus:
"I don't know where to grab actually, I've got a few bumps and bruises. But I'm very happy, I'll have a beer tonight and relax. You go through a lot of ups and downs, for the first 10 minutes or so we just tackled and tackled and that drained a lot out of me and all of the boys."
"It was a rollercoaster and we just got to hang in there."
Michael Hagan:
"I thought on the back of Friday night it might have turned out to be one of those games where both teams have got a couple of tired players, and there was probably some uncharacteristic errors."
"Both teams have got plenty of points in them, so whoever was in the right part of the field seemed to generate points pretty quickly and we had two of the best players in the game [Johns and Darren Lockyer] generating most of that. It wasn't our best performance but a pretty gutsy performance. You can't knock anyone's effort, the performance and the preparation given the Aussie stuff was pretty good, and I think we've got another couple of boys in the Country team, so we'd like to wish them well and hope they get through next week. It's just that time of the year."
"I was happy just to hang on for a very important win at home."
Wayne Bennett:
"It was a bit weird. I think there were five or six tries scored in about 15 minutes just before and after half-time. I think they'd run out of energy by that stage and no one could protect their tryline then. There wasn't much between the two teams; both gave their coaches heart attacks … it was just an afternoon where we entertained everybody - except the coaches."
"Both sides wanted to score that one try that they thought would be that knock-out blow, but I don't think there would have been a knock-out blow today."