HISTORY suggested, before a ball was kicked in their 2002 campaign, that the odds were stacked firmly against the Newcastle Knights.
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Many teams have won grand finals. A far smaller number have successfully defended their title.
In the modern era governed by salary caps, it had become an almost impossible challenge.
To have any hope of staying at the summit, Newcastle would somehow need to improve and evolve.
They would also need a smidgen of luck.
Like most premiership-winning outfits, the Knights were unable to retain their full squad from the previous season.
The wholehearted Paul Marquet had retired, while speedster Darren Albert was heading to St Helens after 65 tries in 89 games - including the most famous four-pointer in the club's history.
He would join a rare group of players to win grand finals in both hemispheres.
Bench prop Glenn Grief had signed for the South Sydney Rabbitohs, who had been reinstated to the NRL after two seasons in exile.
In terms of incoming personnel, there were none of note.
Coach Hagan was instead relying on his homegrown rookies to develop and advance, in particular Clint Newton, Daniel Abraham, John Morris, Anthony Quinn, Adam Woolnough and Matt Gidley's younger brother, Kurt, who was working as an apprentice butcher when he learned the previous season that he would be making his NRL debut.
Newcastle's first assignment was a long-distance one - the annual World Club Challenge between the champions of each hemisphere, against Bradford Bulls at Huddersfield.
Fielding 12 of their grand final squad, the Knights were outplayed 41-26 by the Super League title-holders, whose line-up included six former NRL players, an array of Great Britain internationals and highly rated Kiwi Robbie Paul.
A 36-18 loss to Cronulla and a 32-all draw with wooden spooners Penrith rounded out Newcastle's underwhelming pre-season campaign.
Yet trial form counts for nothing on the premiership ladder, and as soon as competition points were up for grabs, Newcastle were all business.
They exploded out of the blocks, winning their first six games - against Northern Eagles, North Queensland, the Warriors, Raiders, Roosters and Sharks, by a combined tally of 262 points to 70, or 43- 11, on average.
In the process, Newcastle had extended their unbeaten run to a club-record 11 games, incorporating the final five fixtures of 2001.
The victory against Cronulla was notable in that it was the first (and only) time Andrew Johns would play against his brother Matthew, who was back in the NRL after a season with Wigan.
Joey claimed bragging rights not only with the win, but also a 20-point haul from a try and eight goals.
It was not until round seven, in Brisbane, that the champions were reacquainted with the disappointment of defeat.
After leading the Broncos 10-6 at half-time, they were run down 18-12. Not surprisingly, given their early-season dominance, Newcastle featured prominently in the representative season.
Seven of their players were involved in the Origin series and four - Johns (as captain), Buderus, Timana Tahu and Steve Simpson - figured in Australia's mid-season 64- 10 slaughter of Great Britain.
Impressive they may have been, but the Knights were fast being overshadowed by Canterbury.
After a loss and a draw in their opening games, the Bulldogs strung together 17 consecutive wins - the 16th of which was a remarkable 22-21 comeback in Newcastle, sealed with a Hazem El Masri sideline conversion after the siren.
But just as it appeared Canterbury would be minor premiers, followed by daylight, it emerged that they had been systematically rorting the salary cap.
Within days, they were stripped of all competition points, an unprecedented punishment, eliminating Newcastle's most obvious threat from the title race.
Despite an inexplicable 64-14 club-record thrashing at Shark Park in round 22, in which former Knight Brett Kimmorley scored 28 points, Newcastle remained the most popular pick for the premiership.
Heading into the last round of the regular season, they were outright leaders after 17 wins from 23 games.
They were two points ahead of the Warriors, with superior for-and-against statistics.
A win against eighth-placed St George Illawarra at Sydney Football Stadium would have secured Newcastle's first-ever minor premiership - and $100,000 prizemoney that Knights officials desperately needed.
What ensued was a Sliding Doors moment that changed the course of Newcastle's season.
As results panned out, the Knights did not even need a win to clinch pole position in the play-offs.
A loss by eight points or less would have been sufficient. Instead they imploded in a 40-22 defeat.
The Warriors, meanwhile, beat the Tigers 28-12 in Auckland to usurp the minor premiership. Rather than finishing top, and facing eighth-placed qualifiers Canberra, Newcastle were runners-up and found themselves in a second consecutive showdown with the Dragons - who would have missed the play-offs, but for their last-round heroics.
Coach Hagan and captain Johns shrugged off the setback as no big deal.
"Where we sit on the table, it's about where we thought we should be so nothing's changed too much there," said Hagan, unaware of what fate would deliver six days later.
Johns added: "From the club's point of view, the hundred grand would have been nice for us but it wasn't meant to be. I suppose they [the Dragons] had more to play for today than us, but we'll be ready next week."
In the opening round of the finals, Newcastle enjoyed home-ground advantage.
But any reassurance they gained from Bill Peden's early try, igniting the crowd of 21,051, was short-lived.
In a split-second, their premiership hopes were sabotaged beyond repair.
As Johns was held in a tackle by two defenders in the eighth minute, Dragons prop Luke Bailey arrived, crunching the champion playmaker with his knees from behind.
Immediately Johns groaned in agony.
After struggling to regain his feet, he was helped from the field and played no further part in the game, which the Dragons proceeded to win 26-22.
X-rays later revealed Johns had suffered three broken bones in his back.
His season was over.
Adding insult to injury, despite being placed on report, Bailey was not charged and collected the man-of-the-match award.
A furious Ben Kennedy labelled the tackle a "cheap shot" and was incredulous that Bailey was not cited.
"We lose him and all we get is a penalty, and the player who did it stays on and gets man of the match," he told the Newcastle Herald.
"That's friggin ridiculous."
After scans confirmed a six-week recovery period, Johns labelled the injury "the worst I've ever had" but backed his teammates to overcome his absence in their do-or-die clash with the Roosters.
"I still think the boys will rattle the cage this week," he said. "The spirit in the club is enormous ... The fact that no-one's going to give them a shot, I know they'll all be busting their arse to beat the Roosters."
Bailey at least telephoned his NSW skipper in hospital after the game to apologise for prematurely ending his season..
"It's just unfortunate what happened but it could have just as easily been one of my teammates that I came into contact with," he said.
Already without Johns, MacDougall (who played only one game all season, after a knee reconstruction), O'Davis and Hughes, Newcastle were further depleted by the loss of stand-in skipper Matt Parsons after 13 minutes.
Not surprisingly, the Roosters powered home to win 38-12, a result that gave them the momentum to beat Brisbane (16-12) and then the Warriors (30-8) in the grand final.
Adding to Newcastle's disappointment, the loss signalled full-time for 190-game stalwart Bill Peden, one of only five Knights to have played in both the 1997 and 2001 premiership triumphs.
Add those to his 1995 reserve-grade grand final victory, and he occupies a unique page in the club's history.
By his early 20s, the wholehearted lock assumed the highest level at which he would play was for Cessnock Goannas in the Newcastle district competition.
But in 1993, he was invited to train during the summer with the Knights' lower grades and trial for a contract.
He debuted in Newcastle's No.1 side a year later, and by the age of 25 started to establish himself as a regular.
He said that to play eight seasons with the Knights, winning three grand finals, was "something dreams are made of".
"At the time we probably took our success for granted," he told the Newcastle Herald in 2014.
"It's not until you see hard times that you realise how lucky we were."
"Bustling Billy", the son of a Cessnock publican, became such a popular clubman that more than 1000 people turned out for a testimonial dinner after his last game.
As teammate Adam MacDougall wrote at the time in a Sun-Herald column: "You'd go a long way to find a nicer bloke than Billy ... teammates will tell you he is one of those players that unless you play with him, you just don't realise how good he really is."
Clinton O'Brien and Julian Bailey would follow Peden to England, while versatile youngster John Morris accepted an offer from Parramatta.
Knights players and fans would forever more look back on the Luke Bailey tackle as the moment that cost them any chance of going back-to-back in 2002.
Realistically, however, Newcastle should never have been playing the Dragons.
Good teams make their own luck, and in this instance they had nobody to blame but themselves.
We lose him and all we get is a penalty, and the player who did it stays on and gets man of the match. That's friggin ridiculous.
- BEN KENNEDY
Hard Yards: The Story of the Newcastle Knights. Available to purchase from theherald.mybigcommerce.com/books/ $19.95
