‘Their hearts are with Newcastle’: How Johns brothers could help Knights

1 week ago 3

Newcastle coach Justin Holbrook breaks into a grin when asked how the Knights would have taken to Las Vegas when he played for the club and the likes of Andrew and Matthew Johns were household names.

“It would have been a bit more lively, I think, off the field,” he joked. “It might have been a bit harder to contain them back then I reckon.”

Justin Holbrook’s measured approach to coaching has been well received.

Much has changed in the more than quarter of a century since Holbrook was a back-up halfback to the younger Johns, making five first-grade appearances for the Knights in 1999 and 2000.

The Kalyn Ponga-led side of 2026 was permitted to let their hair down after arriving here a week ago, just like the other three NRL teams in town. But they have been on their best behaviour, eager to shake off the 2025 wooden spooners tag when their campaign starts on Sunday (Australian time) against the North Queensland Cowboys.

To improve on their performances from last year, attack-minded Holbrook wants to capture the spirit of Newcastle’s glory years. He intends on reaching out to the Johns brothers as a sounding board as he charts a course forward, although Matthew’s loyalties are complicated by the fact he is a minority shareholder of the Gold Coast Titans.

“They’re both great guys. Obviously, they live in Sydney and we spend our whole time in Newcastle, but I plan on trying to catch up with them during the year, that’s for sure,” said Holbrook, who appointed another of the club’s grand final heroes, Danny Buderus, as an assistant soon after landing the job.

“Just their outsider view, on how we’re playing as a team, I think that’s definitely going to be a benefit to us. Their hearts are with Newcastle, they were the best players to play here … [I’ll] definitely call upon those boys as the year goes on.”

Holbrook, 50, spent three years living in Newcastle as a player, working in sales for companies such as Coca-Cola and Schweppes and mainly running out in reserve grade.

His handful of top-grade games there came during the period in which the Knights won two premierships in four seasons and the city lived and breathed its football team as much as ever.

“It was unreal,” Holbrook said of living and playing in Newcastle at the time.

Kalyn Ponga looms large for the Knights in Las Vegas.

“I was obviously playing the game before the main game, playing a lot of reserve grade, but even then the stadium would be full by full-time of reserve grade and I’d have a quick shower and watch the good players play.

“It’s a hardworking town and they played that way, but they also had a real freedom in attack and that’s sort of what I want to bring back to this current group. So I feel like it hasn’t changed.”

Holbrook has come back to Newcastle in rival camps in more recent years, as head coach of the Titans and then as an assistant to Trent Robinson at the Sydney Roosters.

On each visit he had thought to himself that he’d love to get the chance to return as Knights coach.

Now that he has, he has set about putting his stamp on the club. It features two of the highest-paid stars in the competition – Ponga and five-eighth Dylan Brown, who joined from Parramatta on a 10-year, $13 million contract – but as well as coaching the team Holbrook has made a priority of embracing the city’s working-class identity.

Told that players and club staff had not been down the coal mines in the Hunter region, he organised for them to do that in the pre-season.

“Half of them went to the open-cut mine, half went to the underground. It’s just great to get an understanding of what’s in a day’s life of a miner, and how hard it is to work down there,” he said.

“The way the town is, it’s pretty resilient. It’s used to picking itself back up, from a few things that’s happened up in the Newcastle region over the years, earthquakes and things like that. That’s what we’re going to do as a footy team.”

Holbrook’s measured approach to coaching and rebuilding the Knights appears to have been well received so far, although a minute is yet to be played.

The importance he’s placed on connecting with the community has also hit home.

“He’s very well known and respected,” Brown said as he signed merchandise at a fans’ meet-and-greet session at Las Vegas Resorts World. “He knows we’re a one-team town and with that they love you, they’ll ride you to the death, they’ll be there win or lose. We’re here to do a job, we’re here to impress our fans and we’re here to bring success to the town.

“It’s a tough town. I went to the coal mines a couple of weeks into the pre-season and seeing that stuff just blew me away.”

Ponga, entering his ninth season with the Knights, feels a similar way.

“He’s got a great understanding of what this town is about and what he wants this team to be about,” he said of Holbrook.

“We are a community-based club and it’s important that we represent our people, our town, and this club in that way. He definitely understands what the town is about and he wants us to have that same level of pride.”