Why Penrith Panthers have left the Newcastle Knights suffering from a seven-year itch

In the last round of the 2015 season, the Knights headed to the foot of the Blue Mountains to do battle for a dubious and unenviable "prize".

In a game widely promoted as the "spoon bowl", whoever lost was destined to finish last on the points table.

At half-time, clinging to a 12-8 lead, Newcastle appeared on track to avoid the NRL's ultimate indignity.

Then followed what Knights legend Tony Butterfield would later describe as arguably the worst 40 minutes in the club's history.

Newcastle conceded four second-half tries to surrender 30-12 and finish the season in the competition cellar.

Penrith's win, combined with other results, allowed them to climb to a comparatively respectable 11^th.

With the benefit of hindsight, that game was a defining moment in the history of two clubs boasting similar blue-collar fan bases and famed junior nurseries.

Penrith, after sacking coach Ivan Cleary and then reinstating him three years later, placed sixth, seventh, sixth and ninth in consecutive seasons, before losing the 2020 grand final to Melbourne and then beating South Sydney to win last year's grand final.

They are competition leaders in 2022 and hot favourites to defend their title.

The Knights, in contrast, strung together three successive wooden spoons, before they were taken over by the Wests Group late in 2017.

Shortly before the acquisition, Wests chief executive Philip Gardner declared ambitiously: "We're hoping to be a top-four side four years out of every five. That's the goal.

"That's where you want to get the club to.

"And there's really no reason why it can't be done. It's about developing the kids, and if we've got the junior pathways right, in the next three to five years they'll be coming through and hopefully we'll be competing on a better basis with the clubs who don't place as much emphasis on development."

Easier said than done. The reality is that despite the financial stability Wests have provided, the promised land appears as distant as ever for the long-suffering Novocastrian faithful.

In 2018, the Knights improved to 11^th, then 12^th the following season - a slide that cost coach Nathan Brown his job.

Brown's successor, Adam O'Brien, steered Newcastle to seventh in his debut campaign, their first play-off appearance in seven years.

Last year they also qualified seventh and again bowed out in week one of the finals. On results this season, the team has not only failed to progress under O'Brien but is sliding backwards at a rate of knots.

After 13 games, Newcastle have only four wins to their name and among the losses has been an unprecedented five-match streak of home fixtures in which Manly, Parramatta, Melbourne, Brisbane and Penrith have decimated the Knights by a collective scoreline of 197-28, or 39-5 on average.

A frustrated O'Brien said after Sunday's demolition that there were always going to be "dips and plateaus" on the road to long-term success, pointing to "ingrained" issues that he said dated back almost two decades.

Whether that was a coach running out of excuses, or stating a cold, hard fact, depends on your point of view.

One way or the other, the powers-that-be need to decide if O'Brien is the problem or the solution.

Which ever way that goes, the 40 minutes of footy that once separated these two clubs now appears a vast gulf.

The Penrith Panthers are building a dynasty. The Newcastle Knights are still figuring out how to scratch their seven-year itch.

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