Newcastle Knights coach Adam O'Brien has claimed it is business as usual to the end of the season despite agreeing to part ways with the club this week.
It has been a difficult season for O'Brien, who has overseen the Knights to the bottom four with the worst attacking record in the competition.
Things came to a head this week when he became the second head coach to be sacked in the space of four days, following the Gold Coast Titans' Monday decision to replace Des Hasler with Josh Hannay for 2026.
Like Hasler, O'Brien is setting out the season in charge of the Knights, and his side got off to a flying 10-0 start against the finals-bound Cronulla Sharks on Sunday afternoon before the tide turned and they eventually went down 40 points to 16.
Asked if things felt different, O'Brien played a straight bat.
"No different. Same as any other game. You're riding the highs and the lows. I don't know if I was carrying on up there, but my will and desire is for these boys to perform well and win, and that's still there for sure," he said during his post-match press conference.
The coach said he wasn't thinking about his departure, and instead will simply get his team ready for next Sunday when they play the final game of the regular season against the Parramatta Eels in the west of Sydney.
"I'm not thinking about it that way. I'm thinking we have that game to review and then to prepare for these boys to come in [and get ready]. There will be plenty of time for me to reflect on that," O'Brien said of his impending departure.
Captain Dane Gagai said it wasn't emotion after the decision which led to the club's fast start.
"I don't think it was too much emotion. I think we understood getting off to a good start, dragging them into a ding-dong [battle]. They have a lot of players who can strike with their forward pack and the outside backs get them off to a good start," Gagai said.
"What hurt us was a couple of penalties on tackle three. Even our last plays, defend the whole set well and then there might be a call that doesn't go our way and we are just making back-to-back sets. You can be as fit as you want, but when you're constantly doing it, it's going to burn you in the end."
O'Brien admitted his side simply weren't good enough after a heavy loss of possession through the end of the first half was followed by a lack of intensity to start the second half.
"I felt the first 30 minutes, we got off to a really good start. We had our most experienced side out there and I thought they did a good job," O'Brien said of his side's performance.
"When we were just trading set for set with the Sharks, I thought we looked very comfortable. Our tackle was clean and they were struggling to get out of their own end.
"After they got the first try, things started to unravel for us. We were offside off a kick-off [things like that], they finished the half with a whole heap of possession which took a whole heap of energy out of us.
"The second half, I thought we just didn't start with any sort of level of intensity that's required. We were way off the pace, they obviously started hard and probably got a bit of a rev at halftime. We didn't match that and it took us a while to try and calm them down.
"I'll have a look at some of the personnel that was on during those periods but we definitely dropped in intensity for sure."
