After the departure of legendary coach Wayne Bennett and the customary lurch he leaves every club in, the Knights have experienced some extremely dark days in the past few seasons, typified by three wooden spoons in a row they gained from 2015-2017.
However, off the back of a bumper two-year recruitment drive and some harsh lessons for their young squad, things are starting to look up in the Hunter, with the Knights hitting a purple patch of five wins in a row. While the squad they have at their disposal is impressive, they have let go of a fair share of talent in the past few seasons that Nathan Brown would no doubt love to have at his disposal currently.
Here are the top 10 players the Knights have let go, not re-signed or released in the last decade.
8. Akuila Uate
The third Knights junior to feature on this list, having plied his trade for the Woy Woy Roosters, ‘Akuila the thriller’ forged himself into Knights folklore in his eight-year, 161 game spell at the Knights in which he netted an incredible 110 tries.
In his time at the Knights, Uate became a cult-hero amongst the clubs’ fans and cemented himself as the world’s premier winger in the earlier part of this decade with consistent appearances for the Kangaroos and Blues.
After a lean few years for the club compounded by the fact that he was one of their highest earners while remaining on the wing, it was decided that it was in the best interests of the club and the player that he be moved on, and was promptly snapped up by the Sea Eagles on a two-year deal beginning in 2017 following an early release from his Knights contract.
After a slow start on the peninsula, Uate proved to be an astute buy for the Sea Eagles, seeing out his two-year deal and scoring an impressive 19 tries from 39 games at a strike rate of almost one every two games.
While he was chewing up a decent chunk of the Knights salary cap on the wing, there is no doubt that the Hunter based club would love to have been able to call on their once favourite sons finishing abilities as they struggled noticeably for tries and attacking x-factor the following season which they once again claimed the wooden spoon.
How doesn’t kirt Gidley get a mention?
Not much there is a great loss I would have thought except maybe Tariq Sims. He’s been good at Saints but not quite like at NQ before the broken legs – at that time I thought was almost Tallis/Ben Kennedy-like. Nothing against Sims, but horrific injuries like his take their toll. Boyd wasn’t that great at Newcastle – I thought Saints got the best years out of him and he hasn’t been as good back at Brisbane as he was at Kogarah/WIN. I don’t count Buderus as a loss – he’d just reached the end of a great career at Newie (brilliant work Saints – he trialled with us and we knocked him back, just like we passed on Thurston – nice one Peter Doust).