Knights halfback Jackson Hastings believes Newcastle's playing group have laid a foundation to create their own "culture" and "legacy", but only if they build on their 2023 campaign.
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Reflecting on last season, Hastings - who in his first year at the club helped the Knights progress from 14th in 2022 to fifth and week-two finals exit - said the stunning turnaround this year came on the back of a collectively improved work ethic.
"We defined our season on working hard and playing for the jersey and I'm certainly proud to be a part of that group that has started that new wave," the 27-year-old said, speaking on the Bloke In A Bar podcast this week. "But we've got to continue that. We can't just do it for one year, we've got to do it for five, 10 years and build a culture and legacy here for ourselves."
Hastings, despite a tough end to the season personally, suffering repeat leg injuries which kept him out of four of the last five games, described the Knights' 10-game winning streak before their semi-final loss to the Warriors as "magical".
The Knights sat 14th prior to the run of victories, but had produced some high-quality performances, including close losses to the Broncos (24-20) and Panthers (16-15), who ended up clashing in the grand final.
Hastings said those results instilled confidence in the players that they could compete with the competition's best, and their season was not lost despite their position on the ladder.
"When you combine those two games, against the best two teams in the comp, we realised that we had a squad there together," he said.
"We took the sadness and turned that into motivation, and what happened after that was magical, really. You couldn't have asked for a better end to the year.
"Obviously we didn't finish the year the way we wanted, so we don't want to sit here and act like we're stoked coming fifth and getting knocked-out in the second semi.
"But to come from where we started, and to go on that run and get the whole town behind us the way they did, a pretty special year."
Hastings, who appears to have found a home at the Knights, his fourth NRL club after stints at the Tigers, Sea Eagles and Roosters, started the season in the halves alongside Kalyn Ponga, who was attempting to move to five-eighth.
But a third of the way through the campaign, Ponga return to fullback and Tyson Gamble became his permanent halves partner.
Ponga went on to produce some of the best form of his career to lead Newcastle into the finals, claiming the Dally M Medal for his efforts, and Gamble was just as inspirational through his typically spirited style of play.
"I didn't realise he had that much footy in him. His work ethic as well," Hastings said of Gamble.
On Ponga, who Hastings claimed suffered a "grade-five" AC joint injury in the penultimate game of the regular season, only to put in a man-of-the-match display a fortnight later to beat Canberra in an elimination final, he said his skipper had developed into a genuine leader in his own right.
"The first thing I noticed about Kalyn was how dedicated he was. You get an image portrayed of someone ... but to watch Kalyn go about his work in terms of how hard he works on his leadership ... it's second to none," Hastings said.
"It's pretty impressive to watch him go to work in the mental space. Secondly, how hard he works on the training field. He is the fittest at our club by a country mile ... the shape he is in right now, too, the running he has been doing in the off-season, is pretty scary."
Hastings, who remains on crutches recovering from leg surgery, said Newcastle would need to raise the bar again in 2024 but he had been inspired watching more than a dozen players training already for next season over recent weeks.
He said producing quality displays consistently would be the key to becoming one of the NRL's top sides.
"You've got to marvel at what Penrith have done," Hastings said.
"Not only to make four [grand finals], or win three in a row, but they're consistently first or second.
"We want to be a club that gets our town behind us.
"We always say, 'we want the person on the hill that pays their nine-to-five wage to watch us play, their highlight of their week is to come and watch us on a Saturday or Sunday at McDonald Jones [Stadium]'. We want that to be the best day of their week.
"By doing that, they just want us to play tough, hard football and be in every single game."
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