In the last 12 years, the Newcastle Knights have:

• Been sold by Nathan Tinkler
• Went rather close to going broke before being taken over by the NRL, then purchased by Wests Group
• Had Wayne Bennett walk out to the Broncos
• Sacked Rick Stone halfway through 2015, then won the spoon
• Produced the worst season of the 21st Century (1–1-22 in 2016)
• Won another wooden spoon to complete a Threepeat
• Watched Jarrod Mullen’s career get ended by testing positive for anabolic steroids
• Sacked Nathan Brown in 2019
• Won 10 games in a row and actually won a final in 2023, Kalyn Ponga won a Dally M, all up they played finals 4 times in 5 years but won only won one of them
• Sacked Adam O’Brien after a 4th wooden spoon inside of a decade in 2025
• Made the Finals in Justin Holbrook’s first season, defeated Souths in Sydney, flew over to Auckland and defeated the Warriors at Eden Park to make a Preliminary Final a mere 12 months after that wooden spoon…

And in that entire time, the Wests Tigers haven’t made the finals.

Well friends, here we are at the penultimate week of season 2026, Preliminary Final weekend hitting off the back of one of the more controversial endings of 2026, as the Roosters dispensed with the Sharks with ease on Saturday night, then the Newcastle Knights completed the remarkable upset of the Warriors at Eden Park, as the Warriors’ record at Eden Park continues to be the polar opposite of the All Blacks’, and of course the end to the game saw Ashley Klein fail to call an escort penalty on the Knights after Tyson Frizell blocked several Warriors chasers, which would’ve given the Warriors a shot at goal from in front to send the game to Golden Point, but of course the Warriors had already lost their Captain’s Challenge minutes earlier when Klein claimed that Greg Marzhew’s dropped ball on his own 10m line was an attempted strip by Te Maire Martin, which the Warriors challenged and lost when the Bunker claimed Martin had:

“Moved his fingers into a stripping motion.”

If that isn’t an enormous red flag about the utter dickheads working in the Bunker, nothing is.

And a few minutes after that, the aforementioned escort penalty wasn’t called, the Knights killed off the final minute and advanced to the Preliminary Final, the Warriors went out in straight sets, and the Warriors fans rained cans on Klein as he walked into the tunnel:

We stole the Pavlova from New Zealand, then they stole the concept of throwing drink containers at officials from Hawthorn fans at the MCG…

Who themselves stole it from Bulldogs fans on Good Friday 2015.

And for his part, Ashley Klein has been dumped for the Preliminary Finals, because who’d have thought allowing a documented problem gambler to make a huge decision in a knockout final was going to be such a problem.

Of course, the other big story is that this year’s Grand Final will go without a headline act after Tones And I decided to tour with Macklemore before he gets cancelled, so instead the fee will go to grass roots rugby league, and the great news is plenty of Australian acts have put their hand up, among them Noiseworks and Shannon Noll, but to be honest I’d like to see Peter V’Landys perform a solo tribute to the great crooners of our time…

Imagine that, Pistol Pete on a karaoke machine, paying tribute to Andy Williams and Matt Monro.

MOOOOOON RIVER….

So after all that, our Preliminary Finals for 2026:

The Dolphins vs the Roosters at Suncorp on Friday night, which is similar to a scene from 16 years ago, as the Gold Coast Titans played in their maiden Preliminary Final against the Roosters at Suncorp Stadium on a Friday night in September 2010, and it does seem fitting that after playing the Dolphins in their inaugural game back in 2023, the Roosters are the team standing between the Dolphins and a spot in their maiden NRL Grand Final, trying as well to ensure this won’t be DCE and Mark Nawaqanitawase’s last game in the NRL for at least another week, and it is worth noting both of these teams conceded 50 points in a game during the season, so they’ll have a shot at defying the greatest curse in First Grade rugby league..

And the Sunday afternoon Preliminary Final sees the Penrith Panthers against the Cinderella boys from Newcastle, the first time the teams have ever played in a final despite the Knights now being in the comp for 38 years, as the Panthers feature in their 7th consecutive Preliminary Final, a feat no team has ever achieved before, while the Knights are in their aforementioned first Prelim since 2013 (When the Roosters beat them 40-14), aiming for their first Grand Final appearance since the 2001 Premiership, and of course the great trivia question who they defeated in the Preliminary Final that year?

Cronulla, as Ben Kennedy scored a double for the Novocastrians and the score was 18-10.

And now for the Succinct Preliminary Final Tips:

Semi Final Picks = 1/2

Week One Finals Progress Score = 136/210 (64.7%)

And for the musical tribute of the week… it would’ve been Greg Ham’s 73rd birthday on Sunday, so here’s his finest contribution to Men at Work, the saxophone solo from Who Can It Be Now, which went to No.1 in the US in October 1982!

If Colin Hay had his way, the saxophone solo in the intro would’ve been used later in the song (Although the other saxophone solo did make an appearance), and the funnier part was the memorable opening sax solo used in the final recording was actually a rehearsal take by Ham.