After finishing the 2023 NRL season with 11 straight regular season wins, the Newcastle Knights are without a victory in the first two games of this season on the back of some poor showings.
The Knights entered 2024 with plenty of expectations to replicate some of the success achieved at the back-end of last year abut thus far they have fallen short.
Consequently, coach Adam O’Brien has swung the axe and dropped veteran halfback Jackson Hastings in favour of new recruit Jack Cogger.
The big change for the Knights comes as they face a severely depleted Melbourne Storm side in Round 3 where they expected to notch up their first win of the season.
Knights legend and SEN’s Matty Johns is amongst those tipping the Hunter-based side despite the fighting spirit of the Storm.
“I absolutely expect them to win, they’ve got to win this one,” Johns told SEN 1170 The Run Home.
“One thing about Melbourne is they fight and regardless of who’s in the jersey, they’re going to be hard to beat.
“But with all of those guys out you would expect that Newcastle get the job done at home, definitely.”
The decision to move Hastings out for Cogger caught many by surprise and the change could have the potential to destabilise the relationship between halfback and coach.
“It’s interesting, Tyson Gamble was brought to the club to be a utility (or) a god guy to could come off the bench or play 13, do a little bit of ball playing and help out (in the middle),” Johns added.
“So, I thought he would’ve reverted into that role.
“But they’ve gone an moved Jackson, interesting, Jackson came out and said that he was rattled, I totally get that.
“I’m just curious to see how that relationship with Adam O’Brien is going to go moving into the future.”
Newcastle host Melbourne on Sunday afternoon in the final game of Round 3.