After nine losses from their past 11 games, Newcastle are languishing in 12^th position on the competition ladder and will probably need eight wins from their remaining 11 fixtures to have any hope of reaching the play-offs.

Heading into Sunday's clash with Canberra in the national capital, the Knights are already three wins adrift of the top nine teams.

To qualify for the play-offs will require a miraculous form reversal similar to Parramatta's famous resurrection in 2009, when after 13 games they were 14^th after four wins and a draw, only to surge home and reach the grand final, which they ultimately lost 23-16 to a Melbourne Storm outfit who were later stripped of their title for rorting the salary cap.

Only the most staunch of diehards will give Newcastle any chance, but O'Brien is ready for a crack at Mission: Impossible.

"I've given up talking about the finals, but I haven't given up on our belief that we can do it," O'Brien said.

"I still believe that. The day that I stop believing in that, then I'm not the right person to be here.

"But if we just focus on wins and losses, we won't get the stuff ingrained into our game that will win games.

"If I just talk about making finals, we won't get Sunday right against the Raiders."

While Newcastle's pedestrian attack and flimsy defence have been heavily criticised over the past two months, O'Brien admitted an even greater issue might be the team's collective lack of self-belief.

O'Brien said the "weight of expectation" was taking a mental toll on his troops, especially after five consecutive landslide losses on home turf.

"I know for a fact they don't want to go grocery shopping, they don't want to go and get coffees, after they've felt they let the town down," he said. "That can can carry a heavy load and erode your confidence. But it starts with us. We control so much of that."

Asked how he could manufacture that self-belief, O'Brien said it was vital to focus on the performance rather than the outcome.

"We've identified a few areas that we want to be able to hang our hat on, week in, week out, and be able to walk off proud with the performance, irrespective of win-loss," he said.

"It's about identifying a few things that we believe wins footy, but we also believe that you can also be proud of your performance if you tick those boxes.

"They're internal, they're a team thing, but if we do them well enough - it's a cliche - but the result will take care of itself."

Newcastle's greatest-ever player, eighth Immortal Andrew Johns, attended Newcastle's session on Wednesday in his capacity as coaching consultant, in a bid to fine-tune their insipid attack.

"When he's not here, he's the first one to reach out to our spine players, so he's in constant dialogue with them," O'Brien said of Johns.

"He's the first one to reach out to me.

"He understands the weight of expectation up here. He's been a huge help for me in that.

"He'll run part of this session today. He's invested ... he understands that there is some stuff that we need to fix and he's actually in there, in the trenches with us."

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