FRUSTRATED Newcastle Knights coach Adam O'Brien has described his side's alarming fall from grace this season as part and parcel of the "dips and plateaus" on the long road to success.
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Having steered the Knights to seventh-placed finishes in his first two seasons at the helm, O'Brien faces a herculean task in salvaging anything from this campaign after Sunday's drubbing from Penrith at McDonald Jones Stadium.
The loss left Newcastle 12th on the ladder, three wins adrift of the top nine teams, with 13 games to play.
Moreover, it continued an unprecedented run of outs on their own turf.
In five consecutive home games, the Knights have been beaten 30-6 by Manly, 39-2 by Parramatta, 50-2 by Melbourne, 36-12 by Brisbane and Sunday's 42-6 trouncing from the premiers.
That equates to a combined scoreline of 197-28 - or 39-5 on average. Never before have Newcastle endured so many consecutive blowouts in their own backyard.
O'Brien expressed his gratitude to the 21,332 diehards who attended Sunday's game and assured them: "No one's setting out to let them down or have them leave the stadium feeling disappointed in their footy team."
O'Brien paid tribute to the Panthers, saying he was "envious" of what they have built in recent seasons, adding that Newcastle should aspire to reach such standards of excellence.
"That's the organisation that we want to get to," he said. "It's going to take time. It is not a quick fix."
O'Brien suggested some of Newcastle's issues were "ingrained" and dated back to long before he took over as head coach in late 2019.
"It is not a quick fix," he said. "There's some stuff here that's been ingrained for, I wouldn't say years, I'd say closer to two decades, that we need to get on top of and they're not quick fixes.
"Rarely is progress or success in a straight line.
"There's dips and plateaus, and we're going through a fair bit of it, but we've got to stick at it.
"It's not all on players either, it's staff.
"We've all got to be working really hard at eradicating this.
"We've got the right people in the organisation, and we've identified, and it's not an easy fix, but trust me, we're working at it every day."
Asked specifically what areas needed to be addressed, O'Brien replied: "We've got to get our pathways right, we've got to get our recruitment and retention right, we've got to get our training right, our game model - there's a fair few things.
"And as I said before, there's a lot of good people that are making a lot of improvements that aren't that clear to see from the outside in, but they are happening, and they're putting some really good building blocks on to some foundations, and we can get through to the other side.
"But my main concern is the team and making sure that we understand that we're honest with ourselves and where we're at and identify that there are some shortcomings there that have to be fixed daily for us to achieve it in a game."
