Newcastle Knights’ tale burns bright but Sydney Roosters are built just for NRL’s grand occasion | Jack Snape

Grudging favourite the Sydney Roosters meet rugby league’s forgotten child the Newcastle Knights in the NRL grand final on Sunday night. The recipe is delicious, its concoction somehow spiritual: the effect of the combined crossings of every finger in the Hunter Valley, urging just one more win in the Knights’ improbable run to the decider.

Whatever the result, and no matter how brilliant the Roosters might prove to be, the occasion will be remembered for the Knights’ presence. They are, of course, outsiders against the formidable tricolours. The underdogs finished seventh, and the finals have already delivered them three upsets against the Rabbitohs, the Warriors and the Panthers. This Knights’ tale gleams more brightly one year after their wooden spoon.

Sickly sweet and yet of substance, Newcastle’s story keeps giving. The resurrection of coach Justin Holbrook after his assassination on the Gold Coast. Of “better than Lego”, and the demolition of the big penis.

Back then, they were not only the likable battlers from a regional city down on its luck. Andrew Johns and co represented all that was good in the working-class game by rejecting the advances of News Corp’s Super League. Darren Albert’s late try in the 1997 ARL premiership was thus both an on-field triumph and a middle finger upturned towards the breakaway competition and their Hunter Mariners. The Knights then backed it up in 2001 in the modern NRL: a just reward for a team broadly adored, even if by then Matty Johns had moved on.

The TV personality’s prominence in rugby league circles over the past two decades has been the inverse of Knights’ success. Two and a half decades of mediocrity have made mythical those heady but brief Newcastle glories. The club’s broader irrelevance in the intervening period serves as a reminder that opportunities like this do not come around often.

Generational? Sunday’s contest is the very definition. The Knights’ first grand final in 25 years is too long ago for Fletcher Sharpe to know what it really means. The five-eighth, 22 years old and the next great playmaker from the Johns’ home town of Cessnock, has to hear about those great Knights teams from his parents, or from much-loved VHS tapes transcoded to now grainy YouTube. A long time coming? Ask Tyson Frizell. No player has waited longer than his 305 NRL games to play their first grand final.

This sudden premiership opportunity feels fragile for those who remember 2001, but many – like young backrowers Jermaine McEwen and Francis Manuleleua, and prop Cody Hopwood – play without the weight of expectation. As fans’ hearts lurch from beat to beat, and “Joey” Johns breaks down in tears, the Knights under Holbrook have proven calm and confident, having knocked off the Warriors in Auckland and now the Panthers with a man down. Behind the quick thinking of half Sandon Smith and his tap against Penrith, and the fearlessness of fullback Kalyn Ponga – epitomised by his destruction of Moses Leota last week – the Knights are fitting partners in Sunday’s dance.

The Roosters, however, are built just for this occasion. The recruitment of veteran half Daly-Cherry Evans, together with the late-career revival of James Tedesco, have aligned perfectly with the emergence of centre Robert Toia and prop Naufahu Whyte, now ripened after a few seasons and both named in the Dally M team of the season.

In tiny playmaker Sam Walker and rugby-bound winger Mark Nawaqanitawase, the Roosters boast two of the NRL’s most flamboyant talents. Their brilliance softens broader distaste towards the league heavyweights, even if they are missing utility Connor Watson due to last week’s concussion.

The NRL decider follows the NRLW grand final, where the Roosters again feature against the defending premiers Brisbane. It is a chance for revenge for the tricolours, whose loss in last season’s decider was their only one of the season. The result will be overshadowed, however, by the retirement of Broncos’ half Ali Brigginshaw, the greatest player the women’s game has seen.

The consolation for the Panthers and Dolphins fans sore from last week’s NRL preliminary final defeats is their colours will still be represented on grand final day. Penrith’s NSW Cup-winning side meet Queensland Cup champions Redcliffe in the day’s state championship curtain-raiser. Fullback Jaxen Edgar is the latest to emerge from the talent factory at the foot of the mountains, and a reminder to the Knights and Roosters to strike while the Panther sleeps.

The NRL has been able to boast about 2025’s grand final television draw for the past 12 months, but Peter V’landys complimented the AFL on their decider’s impressive average audience of 4.52m – supercharged by Kylie Minogue – this week. It was an early concession in Australia’s great code war, suggesting Sunday’s NSW-centric showpiece will attract a lower viewership than Brisbane’s dramatic AFL victory over Fremantle.

TV ratings will be an afterthought, however, when the Screaming Jets’ 1990s classic Better – the Knights’ unofficial anthem – rings out: “They said you’d never get anywhere, well they don’t care and it’s just not fair, that you know, and I know better.”