Despite scoring a remarkable 178 centuries in professional cricket, Hick was dubbed a "flat-track bully" early in his comparatively underwhelming Test career, and the label stuck.

The terminology has since become accepted parlance in sporting lexicon, defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition, but who cannot beat top-level opponents".

And as Sporting Declaration reflects on another failed attempt by the Newcastle Knights to qualify for the NRL finals, and ponders why and how the wheels fell off, flat-track bullies seems to sum it up in a nutshell.

When the going was good, the Knights were very good. But when the going got tough, they rarely got going.

For all the fuss made about the departure of coach Nathan Brown, and the claim by Andrew Johns that Knights officials had effectively "sabotaged" their own season, a quick look at the competition points table casts doubt on that theory.

Even if his players had responded positively to the news Brown was leaving, and beaten the Wests Tigers at Campbelltown, then followed that with a win against wooden spooners Gold Coast, they would still have needed a last-round victory at Penrith and been relying on at least one other result this weekend falling in their favour.

In other words, had the Knights been able to defy their management-inflicted "sabotage" and win the last three games of the season, there was still no guarantee that would have been enough to secure a finals berth.

And that surely suggests the damage was done long before Brown and the club went their separate ways.

When the dust settles at the end of the preliminary rounds, Newcastle will have won either 10 or 11 games and finished between ninth and 11^th, which will constitute their best season since they last appeared in the play-offs, in 2013.

But most would agree that with five incumbent Origin players and a host of other ex-representative stars and seasoned first-graders in their roster, they have underachieved.

When the finals kick off next weekend, the Knights will be conspicuous by their absence, because they had more than enough ability to be involved.

Where did it all go wrong?

With the benefit of hindsight, my view is that Newcastle's six-game winning streak between rounds seven and 13 - after which they were sitting pretty in the top five - flattered to deceive and might actually have contributed to their ultimate demise.

An NRL season is a long, grinding test of physical and mental toughness, and the hardest games to win are those at the start of a campaign, and those in the countdown to the finals.

When the season kicks off, teams have been training for three months and are super fit, generally close to full strength and highly motivated, given that they all believe a top-eight finish is achievable.

This is as close as the competition gets to a level playing field. Every game is a battle, because every team is committed to the cause.

After a gritty 14-8 win against Cronulla in round one, Newcastle then slipped to five successive defeats, culminating in a 38-14 shocker on the Gold Coast.

They recovered to string together six consecutive wins, which included the prized scalps of the Roosters and South Sydney.

But realistically this was a transitional phase of the season.

The real contenders start focusing on the long game, and are not too worried about their mid-season results, while teams near the bottom of the ladder are already stuggling for form and confidence.

The Knights won seven of eight games during the middle third of the season, but it was the one they lost, 34-4 in Melbourne, which perhaps spoke loudest about where they were really at.

Teams like the Storm, Roosters and Souths, who are accustomed in negotiating their passage to the finals, start upping the ante once the State of Origin series has finished.

Let's just say they have improved one per cent each week over the last 10 rounds of the season. That means they have raised their game 10 per cent on where they were mid-season.

And that's standard practice because they know, from experience, exactly what is required.

The Knights, in contrast, could perhaps be forgiven if they had made the mistake in June of assuming that the level they were playing at would be sufficient.

They were certainly earning rave reviews at the time, and that might have been enough to induce complacency.

Instead of improving like their rivals, they stalled, and before they knew it were on their way to seven defeats in eight games, including capitulations against the Roosters, Manly and the Tigers.

Big wins at home to North Queensland and the Titans can't disguise the challenge facing incoming coach Adam O'Brien.

O'Brien has worked at two clubs, Melbourne and the Roosters, where toughness and consistency are trademarks. Somehow he needs to instill those qualities into the Knights, and history suggests that will be easier said than done.