THE Newcastle Knights' unacknowledged rivals in 1997 were a team they could never play, yet against whom they scored a comprehensive moral victory.
Within days of full-time sounding on the 1996 season came momentous news that would split rugby league in two: Justice James Burchett's Federal Court verdict, which effectively outlawed the proposed Super League, had been overturned on appeal. Rupert Murdoch's News Limited was hence cleared to proceed with a breakaway competition, and one of their 10 franchises, the Hunter Mariners, would be based in Newcastle, whether the locals liked it or not. The Knights, meanwhile, would continue to play in a 12-team premiership run by the ARL.
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From the outset, there was little local affection for the Mariners, seen by most Novocastrians as uninvited, illegitimate interlopers, despite the presence of a number of former Knights players and officials in their ranks.
The underlying friction between the two camps threatened to ignite when it was reported the Knights owed $138,000 in unpaid council rates - and immediately blamed the Mariners for leaking the story. The Mariners had hoped to play at Marathon Stadium, but the Knights refused to share.
The Mariners launched legal action in the Supreme Court, but Justice Malcolm McLelland ruled that the Newcastle International Sports Centre Trust had no obligation to allow the Mariners to sub-lease the 30,000-capacity ground. News Limited was ordered to pay court costs.
Justice McLelland's decision meant that News Limited would not proceed with a proposal to invest $4 million in upgrading the stadium.
The Mariners considered a range of other home grounds, including Newcastle Showground, No.1 Sportsground and St John Oval, Charlestown, before investing $750,000 to upgrade the 12,000-capacity Topper Stadium, at Birmingham Gardens, the home base of Newcastle Breakers soccer club.
Knights chairman Michael Hill was forced to deny reports that the club had banned its players from attending Mariners games, although he made his position quite clear, saying that to do so would be an "insult" to Knights fans, akin to supporting "the enemy".
There was only one way to counter the unlikely threat of long-time Knights fans being tempted to jump ship to the Mariners, and that was to perform on the field. That would be a task easier said than done, given that coach Reilly's squad had been reduced by the release of Jamie Ainscough and Darren Treacy to St George, and the defection of Brad Godden, Paul Marquet, Robbie McCormack, Robbie Ross, Brett Kimmorley, Tim Maddison and John Carlaw to the Mariners.
In contrast to the long queue of outgoing players, Newcastle's only recruits were unheralded Leo Dynevor, a Queensland-born halfback who Reilly had noticed playing for the London Broncos, and outside back Adam MacDougall, who had played in under-21s for the Knights before making six top-grade appearances for the Roosters.
Both were little-known, but MacDougall, in particular, was in a hurry to change that. The son of former Balmain, Wests Magpies and NSW centre Gil MacDougall, he immediately raised eyebrows of his teammates with his radical diet and idiosyncratic any oval. And teammates told so many tales of him "feeding the machine" - usually with copious quantities of egg whites and protein shakes - that it became hard to separate fact and fiction.
For a player with barely a handful of games to his name (and not a single try), his supreme self-confidence and brazen ambition initially seemed outrageous and was the subject of much piss-taking. Combine that with his aggressive pre-match warm-ups, which sometimes involved deliberately banging into walls and lockers, and he was soon labelled "a wild bit of gear" by senior player Tony Butterfield. But his teammates also recognised MacDougall for what he was on the field: a beast of an athlete, and a matchwinner. Someone you would rather have playing with you than against you.
He was quickly christened "Mad Dog", a nickname that a nickname that rolled off the tongue and he would carry throughout his career.
The signing of Dynevor, meanwhile, proved equally fortuitous after champion Andrew Johns tore ankle ligaments in a pre-season trial. Joey would miss the first 10 games, and with Kimmorley no longer an option as his understudy, Dynevor emerged as a key figure during the first half of the season, slotting in seamlessly as first receiver.
In a break from tradition, Newcastle changed their jerseys from the predominantly blue strip with red shoulders and breast they had worn for nine seasons to blue-and-red vertical stripes, apparently at the suggestion of Matthew Johns, who admired the iconic kit worn by Spanish soccer giants Barcelona.
In Andrew Johns' absence, the new-look Knights won six games and made that seven from 11 when he returned against the Tigers at Leichhardt, kicking two goals off the bench in a 26-18 victory.
Despite missing the first 10 games of the season, Joey was rushed into the NSW side. While he helped the Blues to a 2-1 series win, he was left ruing a punch-up with Maroons hooker Jamie Goddard in game three, after which he copped a two-game suspension on top of 27 stitches in a badly cut mouth.
By the time the regular season was finished, Newcastle had qualified second in the seven-team play-offs, behind runaway minor premiers Manly. In their 14 wins, a draw and seven losses, they scored 512 points and conceded 320 - the best defensive statistics in the competition. Yet along the way, their losing run against the Sea Eagles had extended to 10 consecutive games, after 22-8 and 14-12 defeats at Brookvale and Newcastle in rounds seven and 18 respectively. More than five years had passed since the Knights had celebrated a success against their sworn rivals from Sydney's northern beaches.
Crucially, wins against Illawarra (22-12), Gold Coast (44- 18), Souths (26-8) and Balmain (34-10) provided Reilly's troops with confidence and momentum heading into the finals.
The last-round thrashing of the Tigers was the perfect way to celebrate a historic occasion - Newcastle's first-ever gathering of the Once a Knight Old Boys, a reunion organised to celebrate the club's 10th season. It would become such a successful annual event that other clubs would borrow the blueprint.
Newcastle's late run of form prompted a neutral observer, North Queensland Cowboys coach Tim Sheens, to select the Knights as his premiership fancies. In a Sydney Morning Herald column a week before the play-offs started, Sheens said he would stick his neck out and tip Newcastle to beat raging title favourites Manly in the grand final. His rationale?
"I base this largely on the one man - the Knights' outstanding fullback, Robbie O'Davis," he wrote. "I rate O'Davis one of the form players in either competition and see him as the player who will make the difference in the big games."
I rate Robbie O'Davis one of the form players in either competition and see him as the player who will make the difference in the big games.
TIM SHEENS
It was a bold prediction, and Sheens's faith appeared misplaced after 20 minutes of Newcastle's qualifying final, when they trailed Parramatta 18-0 at Sydney Football Stadium. But after two tries from the blockbusting MacDougall, the Knights powered home to win 28-20, setting up a semi-final grudge match against Manly.
In a nasty, take-no-prisoners contest, the Sea Eagles won 27-12, but their 11th successive win against Newcastle was overshadowed by a post-match slanging match. Manly accused Knights veteran Tony Butterfield of spitting on three of their players: Terry Hill, John Hopoate and Daniel Gartner.
Hill had no qualms about going public with his claims that Butterfield spat on him out of the corner of his mouth. The Test centre said he called him a "f---ing dog" in response. Butterfield said he had "vague recollections" of the incident but insisted it was accidental. He added that he had played hard and fair for more than a decade and had no need to resort to such "rubbish".
Knights CEO Ian Bonnette defended Butterfield in media interviews, declaring: "People who know Tony Butterfield and also know Terry Hill, I'm sure, will be able to draw their own conclusions." Moreover, the Knights countered with claims that Manly lock Nik Kosef had deliberately targeted the knees of Newcastle's playmakers as they launched clearing kicks, in an attempt to injure or intimidate them, a tactic that became known as "clipping".
The match-review panel investigated Hill's claims but found no evidence that suggested Butterfield spat at anyone. Kosef, meanwhile, copped a one-match suspension for dangerous contact. The gloves were now off. In rugby league history, rarely have two teams harboured such outright animosity towards one another.
Manly appeared to have a stranglehold over their frustrated foes. Yet logically each beating brought the Knights closer to a breakthrough win.
Far from eroding their confidence, each loss and every sledge from the silvertail Sea Eagles enhanced Newcastle's motivation and resolve. Revenge, as they say, is sweetest when served cold.
To earn another crack at the defending champions - on the biggest stage of all - the Knights would first have to get past North Sydney, who had beaten them 34-20 and 26-6 earlier in the season.
In the grand final qualifier, the Knights prevailed 17-12 in a game best remembered for a try-saving tackle on Norths fullback Matt Seers by Newcastle's fastest player, Darren Albert.
Albert's miraculous tackle, and a late runaway try by Owen Craigie, secured Newcastle's entry into their first top-grade grand final. A day later, a Craig Field drop goal earned Manly a 17-16 win against the Roosters, ensuring rugby league's fiercest enemies were the last two teams standing.
The ultimate grudge match would decide who hoisted the trophy.
Manly were immediately installed as hot odds-on favourites, but that was the least of Newcastle's worries. They were more concerned about the fitness of their talisman, Andrew Johns, who was hospitalised for several days, on morphine as he recovered from a punctured lung.
Hard Yards: The Story of the Newcastle Knights. Available to purchase from theherald.mybigcommerce.com/books/ $19.95
