The Newcastle Knights NRLW side has made history “the Newcastle way” booking their spot in the NRL Women’s Premiership Grand Final.
The Knights were victorious over the St George Illawarra Dragons in their do-or-die semi-final at Suncorp Stadium yesterday 30-6.
Both sides hit hard attacking with purpose and Newcastle struck first blood with the returning Tamika Upton making her presence felt.
Jesse Southwell combined with Upton diving over next to the sticks with five minutes gone on the clock. Newcastle had a second soon after with Millie Boyle providing a skippers effort from an incredible solo run.
Newcastle were in the lead at half-time 18-6 and held on to keep the Dragons scoreless in the second half to advance to the Grand Final.
Coach Ronald Griffiths said he’s extremely pleased with the side.
“The big thing for us is every week we want a performance of our club that our community, family and team can be proud of and we’ve done that without fail, and that’s all today was so it was a reflection of their attitude and effort in training and their commitment to our club and commitment which was shown in spades out there today.”
The Coach couldn’t have been prouder of skipper Millie Boyle either and her try.
“Unbelievable, the coaches box, we were in raptures, Millie trains like she plays, every player at our club does, a couple of weeks ago we spoke about it at training becasue she got a little bit of a knock because she was trying to score at training,
“And then today you go out there and do that and score a try
“Quite possibly the best performance from a skipper that I’ve seen in a very long period of time, particularly the last two weeks when we really needed something special. Someone asked me earlier in the year do they show you how to win [Millie and Tamika Upton] or do they win games for you, they show us how to win, how to prepare for big games.
“The club from day one has really wanted to embody that our female athletes are really well looked after and develop a program where everyone is brought into it and the club have really, made sure they’ve invested in it heavily,” said Coach Griffiths.
He said they have been playing the “Newcastle way” from the very start.
“We didn’t speak about semi finals or grand finals once, its not in our make up, and that’s not our DNA, our DNA is to turn up and work hard and scrap for each other and we saw that today.”
The Knights will play the Parramatta Eels for the premiership next Sunday at Accor Stadium in Sydney.
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