After surrendering an early first-half lead the Newcastle Knights have fought back to register their first win at Suncorp Stadium in six years by defeating the Brisbane Broncos 30-22 on Friday night.
Going into the sheds staring down the barrel of 12 point deficit Rick Stone’s men rallied in the second stanza to run over three unanswered tries that left the Broncos wondering where it all went wrong.
Coming into the match in virtually identical form and sitting equal on points, both the Broncos and the Knights were in a desperate need of points to keep their fading finals chances alive.
Early nerves seemed to be present in both sides as the match kicked off with both teams guilty of basic handling errors.
But looking to reverse last week’s lacklustre performance against the Sharks, Rick Stone’s men went straight onto the front foot running over two tries in the first 20 minutes.
A high bomb to the Broncos left corner by Jarrod Mullen was the catalyst for the Knights’ first try exposing Denan Kemp to Fijian winger Akuila Uate, who took his chance rising high to grab the ball and ground into the corner.
Sending over a nice conversion from the line Gidley made it 6-0 to the away side, but more was to come in the 17th minute when Brisbane found themselves stretched wide on the left.
With acres of space to run into a nice offload by Keith Lulia to Gidley saw the Knights captain cruise over and after converting his own try the Broncos were down by 12 points.
Looking like it could be a Knights whitewash the Broncos fashioned some luck on the attack and got their reward on 25 minutes.
Bouncing off the pads Parkers grubber fell perfectly for Sam Thaiday who snapped up the loose ball with intent and dived over.
Halving the Knights’ lead with a slick conversion Parker raised the flags but it seemed to signal more than just two points for the Broncos as they began to open up their A-game.
Starting to charge down his famous right-line Israel Folau’s run gained the Broncos some crucial metres in the lead-up to the home side’s second try.
With the Knights pinned to their line Lockyer’s quick pass to Ben Hunt gave the youngster his chance to snare his inaugural first-grade try and the halfback made no mistake.
As Parker converted to level the scores at 12-a-piece the crowd only had to blink and the Broncos were back on the offensive.
Te’o made it three tries in five minutes for the home-side and sent the home crowd into rapture as the lead and momentum swung back in favour of Ivan Henjaks men.
Parker kept sending them over from the spot making it 18-12 but the Broncos weren’t done with the Knights yet.
With Newcastle centre Junior Sa’u struggling to contain Folau’s surging runs down the right-flank another try beckoned.
Rattled by the massive turnaround, another clever pass from Lockyer to Te’o unlocked the Knights defence and after barging past Jarrod Mullen and Sa’u easily the centre had his second of the night and the Broncos had a ten point lead going into the sheds.
Trotting back out onto Suncorp the Broncos looked the goods, but when Hunt dropped the ball from kick-off complacency crept back in and the Knights took their chance.
With just six minutes played in the second half and