Former champion Knights centre Matt Gidley has lifted the lid on the origins of his famous flick pass that is now widely used throughout the NRL premiership.
Toohey's News: Listen to Barry Toohey's full interview with Matt Gidley
Now constantly referred to as the 'Gidley flick', the Knights' Hall of Famer told the latest edition of Toohey's News: The Podcast that his trademark pass that was responsible for countless tries scored by Knights wingers Darren Albert and Timana Tahu during their careers was first developed almost accidentally while Gidley was playing beach footy.
"It was honestly never planned and I never actually practiced it," Gidley revealed in the Podcast. "Where it started, it might have been the 1998 pre-season and we started playing beach football in the pre-season months over the summer.
"You obviously couldn't use a lot of footwork in the soft sand so for the forwards, it was just sort of bash-and-offload stuff. It sort of started from that because, as I said, you couldn't beat too many people in the sand with actual footwork so you lost that advantage.
"It was pretty much making space and off-loading and it [the pass] became a bit of a habit. I carried it into the season and it became part of my game I guess for the rest of my career."
Gidley, who played 221 games for the Knights over 11 seasons and 17 Tests for Australia, is now a McDonald's franchise owner in Griffith in the Riverina.
Knights' rivalries
Who are the Knights' greatest rivals in the NRL?
It's a question worth pondering as we wait to find out what draw the NRL come up with for the rest of the season. The suggestion is there could be a number of rivalry rounds at the back end of the competition after everyone has played each other once.
Manly is an obvious one given the history of bad blood between the two sides while the Sydney Roosters would also get a nomination given the number of ex-Roosters players the Knights now have in the ranks plus a former assistant coach in Adam O'Brien.
Fellow steel city club St George Illawarra could be construed as another.
My nominations though would be the likes of the Gold Coast Titans, Warriors and the Bulldogs - the three favourites for the wooden spoon. Getting to play those three teams twice might be enough to finally end the club's finals drought.
