Knights face fight to return to NRLW finals arena

The Newcastle Knights are in uncharted waters, but coach Ben Jeffries is confident they can still navigate their way back to the NRLW finals.

Premiers in 2022 and 2023, and beaten preliminary finalists the past two years, Newcastle have not missed the post-season since their inaugural win-less campaign of 2021.

But after losing their past two games and three of their past four, the Knights (six points) sit seventh with four rounds remaining and cannot afford another slip-up.

The Knights host fourth-placed Wests Tigers next Saturday, then finish the regular season against the Cowboys in Townsville, and Bulldogs and Titans both in Newcastle.

"We have to win, simple as that," Jeffries said after their 25-18 loss to Canberra at McDonald Jones Stadium on Sunday.

"We just spoke about that then. We've put ourselves in a position now, where it’s pretty much, you have to win every game.

"You don't want to be leaving it until the back end. We're still in control of this, so what you don't want to do is be waiting on other people's results.

“We've been in every game, 100 per cent we’ve been in every game. We've fallen away in parts of games, which is the disappointing part.

"So we probably need to nail moments. There's certain moments in the game where you need to own, basically."

The Knights led the Raiders 10-0 after 15 minutes and 14-4 at half-time, but lost their grip when Canberra scored two tries while Newcastle centre Sidney Taylor spent 10 minutes in the sin-bin early in the second half.

After falling 18-14 behind with 10 minutes to go, Newcastle tied the game 18-18 when Tenika Willison scored in the 63rd minute, but the Raiders secured the win with a Zahara Temara field goal and a Sophie Holyman try.

"I would have loved to have had more points on them at half-time," Jeffries said.

"I thought we had enough ball to have more points on the board, but credit to Canberra, they've come here and scrambled really well and scrambled in for the win in the end.

"We’ve just faded in and out of games. We do some really good stuff, and then take the foot off the pedal. We just spoke about it then, just being a little bit more ruthless around certain things."