The Newcastle Knights are one win from sealing a spot in the NRL finals after a 22-16 victory against Canterbury at CBus Super Stadium on Saturday.
After stringing together four wins in a row, the Knights have climbed to seventh on the ladder with 24 points.
With two games to play, against Gold Coast and Brisbane, they are four points clear of Cronulla, Canberra and the Titans. St George Illawarra, the Warriors and Wests Tigers are on 18 points.
A win against either the Titans or Broncos will guarantee the Knights finish in the eight. Two wins would mean they place seventh and would in all likelihood facing struggling Parramatta in the opening round of the play-offs.
They may even scrape in if they were to lose both their remaining games.
Their win against the last-placed Bulldogs, while crucial, was less than convincing.
The Knights led 10-0 at half-time after tries by Jacob Saifiti and Enari Tuala.
Saifiti scored in the 10th minute after Mitch Barnett flicked a grubber kick backwards before it crossed the dead-ball line, and Saifiti was on the spot to ground it.
Tuala scored his seventh try in four games after winning the race to ground a Jake Clifford grubber kick.
The Bulldogs hit back five minutes into the second half with a try by former Knight Nick Meaney.
Clifford put Newcastle back in control by dummying and stepping his way through the defence to score in the 59th minute. He then converted his try for a 16-6 lead.
Four minutes later Connor Watson and Clifford combined to send Bradman Best over.
The Bulldogs, however, refused to surrender and Ryan James crashed over in the 70th minute.
Then winger Jayden Okunbur scored 23 seconds from full-time to give Canterbury a couple of plays to potentially take the match to golden point.
Both teams were denied tries in the first half by the video-referee bunker.
