Andrew Johns was highly critical of the Dolphins as the side crumbled to a 26-12 defeat at the hands of Newcastle.
Kristian Woolf’s start as head coach has begun on a rocky road as the Dolphins again struggled to compete with fired-up Knights outfit.
Despite conceding three less errors and one less penalty in comparison to the Knights, the visitors ill-discipline proved to be their greatest weakness at key moments.
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James Schiller dived over untouched in the ninth minute to open the scoring for the Knights, before Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow appeared to strike back over the line.
‘The Hammer’, as he is commonly referred to, was denied of the four points after the Bunker identified Felise Kaufusi had caused an obstruction in the lead-up.
The opportunity opened the door for Schiller to cross for his second, before Bradman Best and Dane Gagai reaped the rewards of a trademark Kalyn Ponga display.
“I haven’t seen the Knights look this slick in a long time,” Johns said on Nine.
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Jeremy Marshall King was pinged for a roll-ball on the stroke of halftime in what was the second time the red jerseys had been punished for the indiscretion on Thursday.
“Once again the discipline, that’s the second time tonight … really poor,” Johns said.
“They all know, all off-season they have been told. They need to be better.”
The blunder proved costly for the Dolphins as they watched Gagai celebrate.
Jeremy Marshall-King is penalised for a roll-ball before Dane Gagai scores. Nine
The hooker seemingly hadn’t learned his lesson, with Marshall-King again pinged in the second half as the Dolphins attempted to spur a late comeback.
“I would make him get to training and do a thousand of them,” declared Johns.
“All this is a training habit… unless you do train it, you will continue to give away cheap penalties like they have tonight,” Cameron Smith added.
Isaiya Katoa tried to get his side back into the contest late, but to no avail.
Even with late marching orders handed to Kai Pearce-Paul, the comeback hopes were well and truly dashed as the Knights hung on to go two-from-two in 2025.
Asked about his side’s horror opening run, Woolf admitted he was unsure how the roll-ball errors managed to creep into the Dolphins’ game plan.
“It was really disappointing,” he said post-match.
“That’s not something we’ve had a problem with during the trials or pre-season. I’m not quite sure how that crept in there tonight but it hurt us quite a bit.
“Every win is important, every week is important. We would’ve loved to have gotten a win tonight but we didn’t. We need to get our season started at some stage.”
