Newcastle must defy 15 seasons of history if they are to overcome a season of unsettled halves pairings and win through to make the NRL finals. The Knights will fight for their season on Sunday against Gold Coast, needing a win to keep alive a realistic hope of finishing in the top eight. They will do so with Jack Cogger and Phoenix Crossland in the halves for a second straight week, in perhaps Newcastle's most unlikely pairing of this year.
A never-ending rotation of halves has virtually become the Knights' calling card this season. Coach Adam O'Brien has changed his halves pairing eight times, with six separate combinations used. Penrith also find themselves in a similar predicament this year, but unlike Newcastle, the Panthers' first-choice halves pairing has never been in doubt.
The Knights have failed to keep the same pairing together for more than four straight weeks. Since 2010, a staggering 111 of the 112 teams to reach finals have used the same halves pairing for more than four games straight in the regular season. The one exception is Melbourne in 2020, who still had Cameron Munster and Jahrome Hughes together 13 times in the shortened 20-round season.
O'Brien is hopeful he now has "the luxury of some stability", but this week stopped short of suggesting Crossland and Cogger were his long-term pairing. "All I can do is base it on the weekend's performance, and if we're talking about the spine then I was quite content with what they brought for us," O'Brien said. "We.