Confidence is high in the Newcastle camp following their 16-10 win over the Parramatta Eels with coach Wayne Bennett crediting his players, in particular his fullback Darius Boyd, for their effort in the club's second successive win.
While Bennett was quick to label Boyd as "outstanding", and who can argue with him after the custodian made 206 metres including a 95-metre runaway try and a line break, the coach praised several other players following the game.
"Darius is just back to enjoying his football. He's just such a professional and he gets a bit down sometimes when we're not playing well but he's picked his act up," Bennett said.
"I thought Gagai was outstanding again and there were lots of wonderful players out there especially with the guy beside me here [Beau Scott] with his defence. They threw plenty at us with plenty of talent."
With the Knights seemingly turning a corner in recent weeks, Bennett remained adamant that nothing much has changed other than his team are playing games from start to finish, although he did have a few hard truths about their earlier form.
"We wouldn't have won that game two or three weeks ago," Bennett said.
"I don't think we have changed all that much, we have just started to put it all together for the 80 minutes.
"I think if you look at our performances over the past six or seven weeks, we have been playing some pretty fair football and we'd end up beating ourselves.
“But we didn't do that today and that was probably the difference."
Embroiled in plenty of off-field dramas this season, including a change of ownership at the club in recent times, according to Bennett the Knights’ problems didn't stem from this.
While there are also doubts over the mastercoach's future he noted that he'll "be sure to let reporters know" where his future lies when it is sorted out.
