EVEN Newcastle Knights fans, the most parochial and staunch in the NRL, have their limits.
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After a grim morning in which rain fluctuated between steady and torrential, only the true believers ventured to McDonald Jones Stadium on Saturday for the Knights' last home game of 2019. The official attendance of 8274 - almost 12,000 below Newcastle's game-day average this season - was the smallest at Turton Road in 22 years.
Only three of the 386 home fixtures since Newcastle's 1988 foundation season have attracted sparser turnouts. And on Old Boys' day, no less.
Yet to suggest the weather was the sole contributing factor is to ignore the lessons of history.
Nobody, for instance, among the 30,220-strong throng who attended the Brisbane Broncos' first-ever visit will forget the deluge, as they stood shoulder to shoulder on embankments reduced to quagmires.
And as recently as 2011, when 14th-placed Newcastle hosted Parramatta on a foul Monday night in June, the crowd of 8474 meant there were 200 more hardy souls than turned out on Saturday.
The opposition, Gold Coast Titans, have rarely been much of a drawcard in Newcastle, least of all when they are stoney motherless.
And 3pm Saturday, which in bygone eras was the standard kick-off time for most games, is generally considered the graveyard shift these days. All in all, it would probably have been a tough sell even if the sun was shining.
Yet it is hard not to interpret the thousands of absent bums on seats as a statement: the Novocastrian faithful have suffered enough.
Mid-season hopes of a first finals appearance since 2013 were dashed by an inexplicable collapse of eight losses in 10 games, culminating in a 46-4 capitulation against Wests Tigers that ensured Newcastle would once again finish with the also-rans.
For many, the departure of coach Nathan Brown last Tuesday was perhaps the final indignity in a campaign that will linger long in the memory, but for all the wrong reasons.
Those fans who turned up regardless deserve a medal for courage and loyalty that is bordering on masochistic.
They were at least rewarded with a victory, although even that appeared tenuous after Titans halfback Ryley Jacks opened the scoring with the softest of tries.
But the visitors, who like Newcastle are operating under an interim coach until the end of the season, soon reverted to the form they had shown in nine consecutive defeats. By half-time the Knights had racked up a commanding 24-4 lead, and five minutes into the second stanza teenager Bradman Best powered over for what surely will be the first of many tries in a long NRL career.
But the bottom line is it was too little, too late. Wins by Brisbane and the Tigers over the weekend made sure of that. Knights fans can only hope that the last home game of 2020 has far more riding on the outcome.
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