Newcastle Knights have turned to a former NRL referee for help in a bid to counter a dramatic drop-off in discipline that threatens to derail the club's run to the finals.
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Ex-whistle-blower Steve "Teddy" Lyons has been hired by the Knights on a part-time basis until the end of the season to work with the players to lift on-field discipline standards and get them back onside with match officials.
The Knights currently rank alongside Penrith as the most penalised team in the competition, conceding 130 penalties in 16 games, a whopping 41 more than the least penalised team Parramatta.
So out of favour are the Knights with referees, the side has lost seven of their past eight penalty counts and in their past seven games, there have been a staggering seven sin binnings, headed by prop James Gavet, who has been sent twice.
Their recent record is in stark contrast to the opening nine games of the season where they won four penalty counts, drew two and lost three and no-one spent time in the bin. Ironically, their most heavily penalised performances were against South Sydney [lost the count 13-6] and Brisbane [14-7], two games they won despite finishing well behind in the possession stakes.
Knights utility Kurt Mann admitted coach Nathan Brown had made discipline a big focus in the build-up to last weekend's loss to the Bulldogs.
"It's been crueling us lately our discipline and it needs to improve,"Mann said. "After the Warriors game, Browny went pretty hard on it and made it a focus but I think we fell a fair bit short again against the Dogs. I think there will be a few sprays given out this week in the video session and rightfully so."
Teammate Connor Watson agrees discipline is a huge concern.
"It has been our Achilles heel, the biggest thing letting us down at the moment and it's been that way for the past month," he said.
"We have been good in some areas but we just haven't been putting teams under enough pressure and putting them under the pump because we are letting them out with easy penalties.
"Our defence has been good but with the weight of possession, you have to crack and those penalties are contributing big time to that."
The Knights currently have four players in the top 15 most penalised in the NRL.
Watson is the Knights' worst offender, currently sitting fifth overall, having conceded 15 penalties in 14 games. Skipper Mitchell Pearce [13 in 15], Mitch Barnett [13 in 13] and Gavet [12 in 15] all feature in the top 15 on a list headed by Panthers playmaker James Maloney with 21.
Lyons, who refereed 164 NRL games during a career that spanned more than a decade, will be in Newcastle at least one day a week for the remainder of the season and will also attend Knights matches. He will referee today's opposed training session at the club's Mayfield headquarters but much of his time is expected to be taken up meeting individually with players and keeping track of referee trends in matches.
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"The Knights have been looking for someone to work with the club in that area and he's still been involved in the game at a junior level in Sydney," a source said. "There is a feeling he will be a good fit with Browny."
The NRL's crackdown on professional fouls, repeated infringements and late hits and a lack of 50-50 calls have cost the Knights dearly in recent losses to the Warriors and Bulldogs. Brown said after the Warriors' defeat his side wasn't getting a "fair crack of the whip" from referees in relation to 50-50 calls, believing the whistle-blowers were choosing to penalise for some offenses and not for others.
But he has made no excuses for the lack of discipline at times from his players.
The sin-binning of Gavet in the second half for a marginally late hit on Bulldogs lock Chris Smith after he had passed the ball turned the game. With the Knights a man down, the Bulldogs scored 14 points to surge home for a 20-14 win.
Brown would not comment on whether Gavet 's sin binning was harsh but said his players were well aware of the NRL's crackdown.
"Everyone can make their judgment there, but at the end of the day they said they were going to do it and they've done it, so they have stuck with what they said," Brown said.
"There is not a great deal I can come out and say against it. It is a part of the game they want to eradicate, which is fair enough. But the sin-binning was crucial and then the way we handled the sin-binning was poor."
