The Knights are currently seventh but are banking on winning their final two competition games to wrap up sixth spot on the premiership ladder after South Sydney's stunning upset loss to the Bulldogs on Thursday night.

That would give Newcastle home ground advantage for a sudden death qualifying final in just over a fortnight.

Standing in their way on Sunday is a St George Illawarra side that is currently sitting in 13^th spot, nine points adrift of the Knights. On paper at least, they don't appear to be a major stumbling block.

History, however, suggests otherwise.

For reasons no-one can explain logically, the Knights have a worse head-to-head record against St George Illawarra than any other rival NRL team.

Of the 40 matches played between the two sides since 1999 when the Dragons joint-venture club was founded, Newcastle has won just 12 games for a winning percentage of 30 percent. The Knights have a slightly better record against the next worst, Brisbane [30.7 percent] and Melbourne [34.8].

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But even more remarkable are the stats when the two sides have met at McDonald Jones Stadium. Of the 21 matches played on the Knights home ground, they have beaten the Dragons just three times for a miserly winning percentage of 14.

The Dragons' dominance stretches back to the Andrew Johns era with the Eighth Immortal tasting success just once [2003] from eight games until his forced retirement in 2007.

The Knights only other victories came in 2014 under Wayne Bennett and three years ago when Nathan Brown's easy-beat wooden spooners upset the Dragons 21-14 in Newcastle for one of only five wins that season.

Five members of that 2017 side, including then skipper Sione Mata'utia, Daniel and Jacob Saifiti, Mitch Barnett and Lachlan Fitzgibbon, will all be playing on Sunday and hoping to chalk up another rare win against the Dragons at home. The importance of the game, particularly after the way the side caved in to the Sydney Roosters last weekend, is not lost on Mata'utia, who said defence will be a focus of coach Adam O'Brien going in.

"I think he's taken it pretty hard because he knows we can do a lot better job [then we did against the Roosters]," he said. "We've seen it earlier in the year against some top teams like Canberra and the Panthers and I think that's the most disappointing part that we go through some stages where we defend really well and some stages when we don't."

Newcastle will also be looking to end another unwanted record on Sunday and win the Alex McKinnon Cup for the first time. The Dragons have won on all five previous occasions the Cup has been contested.

"That's something that we haven't won yet which has been spoken about and I didn't even realise," he said.

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