{"id":905890,"date":"2026-09-26T06:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T06:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905890\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T06:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T06:38:15","slug":"nrl-2026-matty-johns-emotional-message-to-knights-what-the-knights-mean-to-newcastle-knights-v-panthers-news-nrl360","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905890\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Matty Johns\u2019 emotional message to Knights, what the Knights mean to Newcastle, Knights v Panthers, news, NRL360"},"content":{"rendered":"

What would a spot in next week\u2019s decider mean for the city of Newcastle? Well, Knights premiership winner Matty Johns has a pretty good idea.<\/p>\n

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The Knights are preparing for their first preliminary final in 13 years. They\u2019ll take on Penrith at CommBank Stadium on Sunday for a spot in a grand final.<\/p>\n

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Johns, who helped deliver the club their maiden premiership in 1997, became emotional on Thursday night\u2019s episode of NRL360 when detailing the importance of the Knights to the city of Newcastle.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoey (brother Andrew) and I were talking about the link between the town and community and it\u2019ll just be unbelievable,\u201d Johns said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery club has their special connection.<\/p>\n

\u201cSporting teams were set up originally to serve the community and that still exists with Newcastle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johns then recalled the day of the 1997 decider, running onto the ground at the Sydney Football Stadium (now Allianz Stadium) and seeing a sea of Knights colours.<\/p>\n

Newcastle went onto defeat Manly that afternoon 22-16 thanks to a last gasp try from winger Darren Albert with seven seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

‘Closest we’ve been to our community’ | 03:38<\/p>\n

MORE KNIGHTS NEWS<\/p>\n

\u2018NOBODY SAID YES\u2019: How Knights revolution started with \u2018crazy\u2019 reality check<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018NOT GOOD ENOUGH\u2019: Shock finals run reignites debate over one of NRL\u2019s great blunders<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis vision will give me goosebumps. I remember this game. The old Allianz Stadium, you couldn\u2019t see the crowd until to you got on the field and as we looked up, the whole crowd was red and blue. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable how (Knights fans) follow the side.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter what occurs on Sunday afternoon, it\u2019s been a fairytale year for Newcastle.<\/p>\n

12 months ago, they were collecting a wooden spoon, but somewhow, with new coach Justin Holbrook ushering in a new era at the club, the Knights are two wins from their third career premiership.<\/p>\n

They face the stiffest test of all this weekend. The all-conquering Panthers.<\/p>\n

However, Johns is giving his former side a strong case.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll as me who I think will win and in big games the Knights are in, I think about what that club gave me and my family so you can\u2019t tip against them. I do think they can win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSunday is going to be pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What would a spot in next week\u2019s decider mean for the city of Newcastle? Well, Knights premiership winner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-905890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905890","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=905890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}