THE prospect of a Mad Monday "nudie run" is not causing Lachlan Fitzgibbon insomnia ... yet.
Fitzgibbon has spent the past four seasons building a reputation as one of Newcastle's most dangerous strike weapons, scoring 23 tries in the first 62 games of his NRL career.
But in 11 appearances this season, he is yet to cross the stripe. Throw in the final round of last season, and a 12-game tryscoring drought is the longest he has encountered.
"I don't care about that as long as we're winning," the big back-rower said on Thursday.
"It's a funny one. I'm really not sure [why]. But as I said, as long as we're winning. When I was scoring those tries a couple of years ago, we weren't winning any games.
"I'd change it all for the way we are now. If I'm scoring and we're losing, I'm not happy, but if I'm not scoring and we're winning, I'm happy."
After notching eight, nine and five tries in the past three seasons respectively, Fitzgibbon must be just about due to open his 2020 account in Sunday's clash with North Queensland at McDonald Jones Stadium.
There has certainly been no lack of effort on his behalf. In terms of average attacking metres (110) and tackles (31) per game, his statistics have never been better.
In last week's 26-24 win against Manly, he produced arguably his best all-round effort of the season - 145 metres and 32 tackles - to overshadow his opposite number, Curtis Sironen.
"Since the start of the year, I think I've been building to a performance like that on the weekend," he said.
"It was a good team performance that managed to get us back in the game.
"Me personally, I feel like over the last few weeks I've been putting in some back-to-back good performances.
"That's always key for my game, being consistent across the whole year ... I feel like I'm in a pretty good spot leading into the last block of footy and then hopefully some finals footy."
It is understandable that playing at the business end of the season is Fitzgibbon's absolute priority.
He and fellow South Newcastle junior Sione Mata'utia are the only surviving Knights from their 2015 season, which was the first of three consecutive wooden spoon campaigns.
Now the play-offs are within sight, but first the Knights must deal with the Cowboys, who beat them 32-20 in Townsville two months ago.
"We definitely owe them one," Fitzgibbon said.
"We were embarrassed up there, especially that first half, earlier in the year. We want a strong performance."
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