Knights unfazed about possibility of playing away games indefinitely

THE Newcastle Knights have no qualms about the prospect of spending the rest of the NRL season travelling by bus to Sydney every game day.

ROAD WARRIORS: The Knights are tipped to spend much of the season travelling to Sydney by bus on game day.

Clubs are still waiting for the NRL to release its revamped fixture list for the May 28 season resumption, but it was reported on Wednesday that Newcastle and Canberra were expected to play all their games in Sydney.

That is likely to mean the Knights driving south on game day, as they did when they beat Wests Tigers 42-24 at Leichhardt Oval in round two.

For almost 30 years, Newcastle have been travelling to games the day before and staying overnight in hotels, as all other NRL teams do.

RELAXED: Newcastle's players have vowed to embrace every challenge this season with a positive attitude.

Newcastle coach Adam O'Brien said on Wednesday he was still waiting for a confirmed schedule, but when asked about the prospect of playing exclusively away from home, he replied: "We'll handle it."

Knights CEO Phil Gardner said the draw was contingent on negotiations between the NRL and broadcasters Nine and Foxtel.

"All we know is someone will play someone else on May the 28^th and we are 100 per cent supportive of that," Gardner said.

O'Brien said last week that new biosecurity protocols were likely to make game-day travel standard practice.

"I believe it will be probably exactly the same as what we did against Tigers in round two," O'Brien said.

"But if that's the biggest hurdle we've got to jump over, we'll be OK with that."

• MORE NRL: PAGES 33-35