Newcastle Knights head coach Justin Holbrook has admitted the 2026 NRL Grand Final is the toughest game he has ever coached.

The Knights, who, deep into the second half, had just ten per cent of the territory battle, made over 100 more tackles than the tri-colours throughout the game, but kept turning up and ultimately only lost by a point.

While the Newcastle side were unable to get off their own line for the majority of the night, there were plenty of positives to take from one of the bravest performances in recent memory.

Holbrook said that while you don't win, you can be proud of your side; he admitted that was the emotion after full time.

“I'm so proud,” he said during his post-match press conference.

“You just felt for them. We were coming off our own line facing baseball bats there. If you can win anything on heart and effort, then we definitely won that because it was the hardest game of footy I've ever coached, watching our side just get the ball coming off our own try-line the whole time.

“But again, you don't win off being proud; you win off being the better side, and we weren't the better side today, and we didn't win.

“They were flying off their line, and it was so hard to get out of our own end.

“Full credit to the Roosters. They played a really controlling game, but for us to nearly be able to pull off a win at the end there or give ourselves a chance, it's so pleasing.”

The Knights were on the ropes for much of the contest, despite getting away to an early 12-0 lead, with the Roosters struggling to breach their line.

In the end, it would be the towering height of freakish winger Mark Nawaqanitawase who managed to get the job done for the Roosters, while other attacking players, led by James Tedesco, slowly found their feet during the second half.

Despite the bombardment and going down by seven points after a Daly Cherry-Evans field goal about ten minutes from full time, the Knights still managed to score late through Greg Marzhew, but couldn't produce a miracle their tens of thousands of fans who made the journey to Sydney were wishing for.

The Knights have had to do it the hard way for the entire finals series, and beat the Penrith Panthers last weekend despite having 12 players on the park for more than half the game.

There were plenty of suggestions during the week that the game was the Knights' grand final, but Holbrook shut down those suggestions.

“We obviously threw everything into this week,” Holbrook said.

“(There was) a lot of talk the last couple of weeks (that), ‘Oh, that was your grand final last week. That was the one the week before'... we're not idiots. We know today's a grand final, and we were ready to go.”