{"id":554610,"date":"2026-03-21T08:59:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554610\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T08:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:59:17","slug":"newcastle-knights-press-conference-justin-holbrook-knights-loss-to-the-warriors-penalty-count-referees-news-videos-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/554610\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle Knights press conference, Justin Holbrook, Knights loss to the Warriors, penalty count, referees, news, videos, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Justin Holbrook has given his side no excuses after their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/nrl\/nrl-premiership\/nrl-2026-newcastle-knights-vs-new-zealand-warriors-live-scores-updates-stream-tries-highlights-mitch-barnett-kalyn-ponga-luke-hanson-dylan-brown\/news-story\/99bd09fca191057babcf9d9b7de77214\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">\u201cpoor\u201d loss to the Warriors<\/a> \u2014 despite a lopsided penalty count that seriously hampered the Newcastle side.<\/p>\n<p>With the score sitting at 18-6 to New Zealand at halftime, Holbrook was said to have told his team the contest was being over-officiated and that the Knights needed to adapt.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, Newcastle were penalised 11 times compared to New Zealand\u2019s four, while Andrew Webster\u2019s outfit also dominated the territory battle with 60 per cent.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/poster-fallback.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>WHAT&#8217;S GAMBLING REALLY COSTING YOU? Set a deposit limit. For Free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.<\/p>\n<p>Watch every game of every round of the Premiership Season LIVE with no ad-breaks during play on FOX LEAGUE, available on Kayo Sports | <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au\/en-AU\/welcome\/nrl?pg=default&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkleague-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-nrl-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in the post-match press conference, Holbrook was pressed on the penalty count but placed the blame back on his team while also conceding he wasn\u2019t sure why it was more of an issue on Saturday. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not refereeing, that\u2019s the way he sees it. That\u2019s up to us to fix, we haven\u2019t had an issue with it until today and we got it wrong and then paid the price for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know possession is going to be heavy against you if you play with poor discipline, and for some reason we had it today at home and I don\u2019t know why.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Get all the latest NRL news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/newsletter-sign-up?utm_source=NRLArticle&amp;utm_medium=TextLink&amp;utm_campaign=signup\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Screaming for it!&#8217; Hanson on final try | 01:24<\/p>\n<p>The Knights also copped a pair of sin bins, with Fletcher Hunt being given his marching orders after a string of penalties saw referee Liam Kennedy give Newcastle a warning.<\/p>\n<p>Hunt was the next to be pinged and spent 10 minutes sidelined, while Trey Mooney was also binned for dangerous contact while Tanah Boyd was taking a kick.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, well both obviously different. So again, if you\u2019re not controlling the game, which we weren\u2019t, we\u2019re on the back foot and we just didn\u2019t handle it well,\u201d Holbrook said.<\/p>\n<p>Skipper Jacob Saifiti echoed his coach\u2019s opinion and also labelled his team \u201cill-disciplined\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>MORE NRL NEWS<\/p>\n<p>BRONCOS VS TALLIS: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/nrl\/nrl-premiership\/nrl-2026-brisbane-broncos-erase-gorden-tallis-name-from-conference-room-replaced-by-ali-brigginshaw-feud-dave-donaghy-michael-maguire\/news-story\/7fc310364bff5baebfa620c2cefa8d71\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Feud hits new low as club strips legendary captain of honour<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2018COMEBACK KINGS\u2019: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/nrl\/nrl-premiership\/nrl-2026-melbourne-storm-v-brisbane-broncos-teams-ins-and-outs-michael-maguire-reece-walsh-start-time-where-to-watch-rugby-league-news\/news-story\/85f6fb5e25e486861dda760c58f9b4bc\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Deja vu as Broncos stun Storm in epic GF rematch<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Wahs dream start continues in Newcastle | 09:50<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, I thought we brought on ourselves. Obviously, like Justin said, with the ball we were pretty poor and put ourselves under pressure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen in defence we\u2019re just ill-disciplined. Yeah, we copped some six against and stuff but we have to look in the mirror and see what we did. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll do that this week in review and we\u2019ll move on to next week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Holbrook has given his side no excuses after their \u201cpoor\u201d loss to the Warriors \u2014 despite a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-554610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}