NEWCASTLE'S coach, captain and primary playmaker agree the Knights are off the finals pace being set by most of the other contenders with five rounds left in the regular season.
But Brian Smith, Kurt Gidley and Jarrod Mullen sensed a significant increase in intensity at training this week, culminating in a morale-boosting session yesterday that they hope to carry into tomorrow's crucial game against the in-form Eels at Parramatta Stadium.
Newcastle's forwards met on Wednesday to tackle their slip in on-field standards in confidence-sapping losses to Manly and the Roosters then Gidley called all the players together for another honesty session behind closed doors.
They responded with an upbeat performance on the training paddock and backed that up yesterday with what Gidley and Mullen described as their best run in months.
"It's only the second time we've lost two in a row for the whole year, so it's a big improvement on last year; certainly not panic stations," Gidley said.
"But we definitely need to improve on those last two games, compared to some of the games we were putting on the field earlier in the year.
"It's a big game for both teams. They obviously want to try to push for the semis and we need to win this one to put us back up where we wanted to be, so we need to get back on that pace where we were earlier in the year.
"The two losses have come at a bad time, I suppose, but if we get a win this week, all that will be put to bed pretty quick."
Winger Aku Uate has been dropped and will be replaced by Cooper Vuna, and fellow flanker Keith Lulia is expected to be replaced by Shannon McDonnell when Smith completes his squad at today's last training run.
Utility forward Chris Houston may be included, possibly as a starter, after being cleared yesterday to return from minor knee surgery. Houston ran unencumbered yesterday and said if he "pulled up OK" today and trained as well this morning, he would play.
Parramatta's 20-18 upset win in Newcastle two months ago started the Eels' revival and sent the Knights into a tailspin, but Mullen hopes to square the ledger.
"The roles have swapped this time," he said. "They'd had a couple of bad losses and they came up here with nothing to lose and pulled our pants down . . . so that's what we're looking to do to them.
"They're on a high and we need to find some confidence somewhere, so hopefully we can find it in the first couple of minutes and keep that going for the rest of the game.
"No doubt our intensity has been down, and we've got to find it somewhere . . . I think we had that finals-series mentality against Melbourne a month ago, and when we beat the Dragons at Jubilee earlier in the year and in some other games, so all that falls back on our defence."
Smith said Parramatta faced more pressure, because the Eels (21 points) had to keep winning to stay in touch with Newcastle (24) and other teams above them.
"We're off that pace at the moment but we've been on that pace at other times during the year," Smith said.
"At this point in time, we haven't been good enough to maintain that from start to finish but, probably with the exception of St George Illawarra, no one else has either.
"Because we've built ourselves the position that we're in, we haven't got that sort of pressure on us that some of the teams behind us have got, where they simply have to win, mathematically, to be in there."
Parramatta coach Daniel Anderson is expected to field the 17-man squad he named on Tuesday but speculation remains that he may call on Feleti Mateo (biceps) or Kris Keating (jaw), who have been cleared to return from long-term injuries.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter