THE Newcastle Knights have reportedly blocked Nathan Brown from standing aside immediately in the wake of the club's widely-panned capitulation against Wests Tigers on Saturday night.
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It's understood Brown met with Knights chief executive Phil Gardner and offered to immediately stand aside if that was in the club's interests, but the outgoing coach was assured they wanted him to see out the season.
Club legend Andrew Johns, NSW coach Brad Fittler and a myriad of fans and legends of the game have been questioning the state of play at the club since the woeful showing in the 46-4 rout that snuffed out all but the slimmest change the club would play finals football.
Fittler accused Knights management of "weakness" and allowing outside parties to interfere in the running of the club.
"People have recognised there's a weakness at the top with the leadership," Fittler told the Sunday Footy Show.
"Because you don't go to a club and try to pry into it unless there's some weakness you think you can get to.
"You're not going to do that at Melbourne if you start dragging coaches down there or some of the other bigger clubs.
"Because the leadership at the top would squash it straight away."
Brown shocked rugby league circles last week when he announced his resignation from the club, claiming his decision had made a hard conversation easy for Gardner.
More to come.
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