Tyson Frizell has played 305 NRL games but has found he can no longer bear to watch the end of grand finals. “It usually gets switched off or I stop watching it as soon as that siren goes because – while you’re happy for everyone – it burns, those celebration of the boys,” he said.
His 15-year career has earned him Blues and Kangaroos jerseys, but Frizell had never reached a season decider. Until this week, of course, thanks to an improbable Knights run that has brought the proud New South Wales city to life.
The 34-year-old has played finals football for the Knights in three of his previous five seasons in Newcastle, but even he has been surprised by the buzz of recent days.
“When we were driving down through Wallsend [in outer Newcastle] just to get to the game, people lined the main road,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of kids, so you have kids sport, and everyone’s in their jerseys. You’ve got parents saying ‘thank you’.”
On the other end of the Knights’ age spectrum, five-eighth Fletcher Sharpe, who grew up in the Hunter Valley, was not even alive when they last won the premiership.
“My family speak about it and tell you how crazy it was in the 2001 and 1997 grand finals,” he says. “As a team, we’ve actually [dived] into it a fair bit this year and you watch things and see what it means to the town and the community.”
The Knights’ 1997 captain, former prop Paul Harragon, spoke to Sharpe and the other players earlier in the season, and Andrew Johns – Newcastle’s favourite son who was inducted as the eighth immortal in 2012 – sent them a video message before Sunday’s preliminary final. The former halfback, who now works for Channel Nine, broke down in tears after the match.
Sharpe gets emotional watching the reaction of other proud Novocastrians. “It almost brings a tear to your eye seeing legends of the game and legends of the club and how emotional they get and what it means to them for the current playing group to be back into the grand final,” he says.
Like Andrew and his brother and fellow Knight, Matthew Johns, Sharpe grew up in nearby Cessnock and still lives there. “They’re the only ones spoken about when you go into footy and stuff in the ‘Nock’,” The 22-year-old says. “Their parents are still out in Cessnock and still are part of the community, which is super cool.
“Growing up they were the ‘Goats’ [greatest of all-time] of the town and someone that you aspired to be, and to be in the position that that they were back in 2001 and 1997, and now to be a part of it and into the grand final, I still kind of pinch myself.”
Justin Holbrook’s arrival as coach has revitalised the squad, but the mid-season injury to half Dylan Brown, their expensive recruit from Parramatta, threatened to derail the season. The Knights have not only survived his absence, however, they have thrived.
The club’s chief executive, Peter Parr, says Holbrook deserves the credit for instilling belief in the team, culminating in their unexpected defeat of Penrith on Sunday despite being one player short.
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“There were some doubts in the minds of a lot of people, but not the players or the coaching staff, and I think that’s where Justin Holbrook has come to the fore,” he says. “He doesn’t concern himself too much with who’s not playing, he concerns himself with who is playing.”
Holbrook – an assistant at the Roosters as recently as last season after his sacking by Gold Coast in 2023 – is better placed than anyone to engineer a grand final shock against Sydney’s glamour club. The 50-year-old played a handful of NRL games before working his way up the coaching ladder, originally in Dapto, south of Wollongong.
Frizell grew up in Wollongong and briefly crossed paths with Holbrook at the Dragons.
“[Holbrook]’s been unreal,” he says. “He’s brought such a confident calmness about him in that he knows what wins, what he wants from his players and he’s pretty direct, but just knows what you need to do and holds everyone to account.”
The forward was known as one of the most damaging edge forwards in the NRL – marauding in the spaces between the big men and the backs – but this season Holbrook handed him a new role in middle, where rugby league is at its most physical and attritional.
“I was open to doing anything, I knew we had a good crop of players coming through and in different positions, I’ve got no ego,” Frizell says. “So when he said that, I was like, ‘Yep, sweet, let’s make it work.’ And then whether that was starting or coming off the bench, it didn’t bother me as long as we were the best team possible and we were winning games.”
The team’s run to the grand final is a surprise after last season, which ended with them being handed the wooden spoon. That was only decided in their final match, an ugly 66–10 loss to Parramatta.
“We had all the control in not coming away with the spoon, and we just … it got too much, and it is what it is now,” Frizell says. “We were able to reset and use that as motivation but also just put it aside and just go, ‘Hey, what’s done is done. Let’s just have a go this year. Let’s have a crack.’”
