This is the 38th meeting between fellow 1908 foundation clubs. These days Newcastle travel to their matches by air conditioned coaches a far cry from the old paddle steamers. Both teams go into the match without State of Origin Stars with Inglis, McQueen and Te'o missing for Souths and Boyd missing for the Knights. Matches against the Knights have been tough over the years but in recent times Souths have been getting the better of them. Both teams will be trying to bounce back after shock losses the week before.

Mullen, Roberts are the key men for the Knights. Mullen has a strong kicking and passing game and Roberts has a strong running game. Uate has a habit of scoring tries against Souths on the end of the Knights backline and will be fired up for being dropped from the SOO team. Cuthbertson and Mason have the ability to offload and setup second phase play.

The Knights main go forward will come from Snowden, Cuthbertson and McKinnon. But opposition teams have been able to hold their go forward in recent weeks

The loss of Boyd and Gidley will be big for the Knights in the set plays. They regularly miss 30+ tackles a game with their second rowers and centers missing the most tackles. With Gagai, Gidley, Housten, Roberts, Rochow have all missed 4 or more tackles in recent matches. The Knights are still learning how to play the % based football Bennett wants.

Rd11 Away L 12-28 v Warriors
Rd10 Home W 44-8  v Canterbury
Rd09 Away L 14-44 v Canberra

Rd11 Away L 12-14 v Cronulla
Rd10 Home W 54-10 v Wests-Tigers
Rd09 Home W 28-10 v Nth Qld

2011 Rd26 NISC L 24-40 30,729 S.Hayne/M.Cecchin
2012 Rd18 StAu W 34-14 16,104 A.Klein/B.Suttor
2012 Rd26 NISC W 18-6  24,127 M.Cecchin/C.James

Souths will win this game up the middle with our forwards dominating up front. Sutton is in career best form and he will want to show up NSW selectors after being dumped to 18th man in a selection botchup. This game is not in Newcastle and Newcastle have a poor travel record this year and Souths had a good win at ANZ Stadium last year. The loss of SOO stars will impact this game but the loss of Gidley and Boyd will be felt more by Newcastle than the loss of Inglis by Souths.

In this game I expect it to be a power play up the middle but with our first try scorer to be through the second row/center area with Champion or Walker being first scorers.

Souths by 22