Best Says 2025 Spoon Battle Lit Fire Before Titans Vs Knights

Bradman Best said the titans vs knights meeting at Magic Round carries the weight of Newcastle’s 2025 wooden-spoon fight, even as he misses Sunday’s clash with a calf injury. The Knights forward said last season’s final-round mess pushed the group to avoid ever being in that position again.

Best on Newcastle's fire

“It lit a fire in my belly,” Best said of the experience that followed Newcastle’s final-round loss and Gold Coast’s late surge. He also said, “We just don't want to be in that position ever again,” after the Knights were dragged into last place on the final-round weekend of the 2025 regular season.

That run came after Newcastle entered the last round needing to beat Parramatta or hope the Titans lost. Gold Coast had spent 12 of the previous 14 rounds at the bottom of the ladder before upsetting Wests Tigers on the penultimate day and leapfrogging Newcastle.

Parramatta's 66-10 finish

Newcastle then fell 66-10 to Parramatta in Adam O'Brien’s final game as coach, a result that sealed the club’s only weekend in last place for the season. Best called that spell “It was disappointing,” and added, “Then when they won and then we had to play and we lost, it was hard.”

He also said, “It was the easy option, thinking like that (relying on the Titans to lose).” The blunt assessment fits the way Newcastle has started under Justin Holbrook, with six wins from its first 10 games despite injuries to Fletcher Sharpe, Kalyn Ponga, Dylan Brown, Tyson Frizell and Dylan Lucas across the first 10 weeks.

Holbrook's 6-4 start

That 6-4 opening has given Newcastle a cleaner early read than it had last year, when one bad weekend turned into a spoon battle. Best said the aim is to rewrite that feeling for “the club, community and for ourselves,” and his calf injury will keep him out of Sunday’s matchup while the Knights try to keep their turnaround moving.