NRL | Shattered Knights vow to make the finals in 2020

Flying high in fifth position after their 26-12 win against Brisbane in round 15, Newcastle faded spectacularly to lose seven of their next eight games and crash out of the finals race.

Even their 38-4 thrashing of Gold Coast in last weekend's penultimate round was not enough to keep their season alive, and Sunday's clash with Penrith at Panthers Stadium will effectively be a dead rubber for both teams.

The best outcome for Newcastle will be to win and climb from 10^th rung on the competition ladder to ninth, which would be their highest finish since their last finals appearance, in 2013.

"We know what we're capable of, and we see it like we should be a top-eight side," Knights five-eighth Connor Watson said. "It's really disappointing ... it's our fault. We got ourselves in that hole, so we're the ones to blame there. We can't be relying on other teams to get us in the finals."

Watson said after the Penrith game it would be important for Newcastle's players to "get away from football for a bit, and clear the head" before returning for pre-season under a new coach, who is yet to be confirmed.

"For us, it's about becoming more resilient as a team," Watson said.

"We've got a big task ahead of us ... it's been hard, especially the last eight to 10 weeks, where we just sort of fell away.

"We were really in there and we let it get away from us, which has been really disappointing. It's a driving factor for next year. Everyone wants to win a first-grade premiership.

"That's what everyone dreams of, and no one's goal's have changed.

"The setbacks this year are going to make us hopefully a bit hungrier and next year we come through and win those close games and do make the finals."

NSW Origin prop Daniel Saifiti, who was part of a team that collected back-to-back wooden spoons in his first two NRL seasons, said this year's result was perhaps even harder to stomach.

"It's tough to take, because the talent we have and the roster we have - we had five Origin players this year, Samoan internationals, other internationals too - we will look back on it at the end of the year as a chance missed," he said.

Saifiti added that the Knights needed to become "mentally tougher" as a collective group.

"I think it makes it more disappointing that we were in the top four, in round 13 or 14," he said.

"We'd won seven out of eight and were going good, and then, for me personally, it's hard to explain ... it's disappointing how we finished."

Watson said the difference between the Knights and benchmark teams like Melbourne and his former club, the Sydney Roosters, was their consistency and ability to grind out a win.

"Close games are the ones that set your season up, if you're a real serious title contender," he said.

"We just didn't do that this year and that's why we aren't playing finals football, and why we fell out of the top four, because we started to fall away from that."

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