The Newcastle Knights women have won their first ever NRLW game, cementing their place as a real threat in the NRLW competition.
Newcastle downed the Brisbane Broncos in a thrilling 32-14 win at McDonald Jones Stadium last night.
The side led from start to finish with 17-year-old Jesse Southwell scoring the opening try of the game for the Knights – she’s the youngest ever NRLW player and fresh off the back of her performance with the Australian Rugby 7s side at the Commonwealth Games.
Post-game, Jesse was still buzzing.
“It was amazing, I’m still kind of pinching myself wondering how I got here, it was just amazing,” she said.
“I don’t think it’ll get real that we just beat The Broncos!”
“I hope we can go all the way, like every team does, but we’re still a pretty young and new team to the whole comp so whatever happens it’ll be the Newcastle way.”
She said the highlight of the game for her was being able to run out with her sister Hannah.
“Getting to run on with with Hannah was probably the highlight, I’ve always dreamed of that!”
The Knights NRLW had ten players making their club debuts including co-captain Millie Boyle who went for 18 runs for 159 metres, Tayla Predebon scored her first try in her debut and Tamika Upton also performed admirably on the field in her first game with the side.
With three minutes to go, Bobbi Law collected a lovely cut-pass from Kirra Dibb before racing away to score her side’s sixth try and the win.
There was one injury for the Knights with Hannah Southwell forced off two minutes before half-time break with a suspected ACL tear – she’s getting scans today.
Knights prop and co-captain Millie Boyle was very proud of the team.
“It was really special, [coach Ronnie Griffiths] had a lot of trust in us to deliver the performance and we’ve got a lot to work on but it’s great to do that for Newcastle, our staff, our team and players as well to do everyone proud. It means everything to me to be involved in this playing group. I think everyone played really well tonight.”
It wasn’t as good of a day for the men’s side who lost against the Canberra Raiders 28-22.
They were dominant in the first half but let the game fall away from them in the second. It could’ve been the Knights game at the end with winger Edrick Lee going for a last minute try in the corner which may have taken the game to golden point but it was denied by the bunker.
Disappointingly the crowd had halved when the women ran out — there were about 16,000 people packed into the stadium for the Voice for Mining Round when the men played, but it dropped to just over 8,300 by the time the women played at 6 o’clock.