Game on: Knights out to make explosive start to title defence

The two-time defending premiers enter the competition's opening fixture - a standalone game at McDonald Jones Stadium - with just one top-flight regular unavailable due to injury in forward Simone Karpani.

Their representative players have emerged from the recent Origin series healthy, and after a seven-week long pre-season the squad is fit and firing and ready to go.

"There's no doubt that within this group they are a talented football bunch. Their football IQ is really high for the whole group," Knights coach Ben Jeffries said.

"But how the game is about to evolve in the female space, it's going to get quicker, faster and with that they become stronger, and that's the challenge we've thrown down to them.

"They've taken it on.

"They are fitter, faster and stronger, but I suppose every club feels like that now too."

Jeffries, in his first year as coach following the departure of Ronald Griffiths, named an essentially full-strength side for the 7.45pm match. Karpani, still recovering from a Lisfranc injury sustained last season, is the only player missing likely to have been in the side.

Newcastle's premiership-winning stars all resume their normal duties.

Two new players will make not only their club debuts, but their first NRLW appearances in rugby union converts Isabella Waterman and Grace Kukutai.

The Knights successfully converted players from union and also soccer last year, and have high hopes for the two former New Zealand Super Rugby players.

"They came here with a work ethic and they've challenged players internally as well," Jeffries said of Waterman, who was named on the wing, and Kukutai, a forward who will come off the bench.

Headlined by Dally M Medal-winning fullback Tamika Upton, individually a four-time premiership winner, Newcastle's squad remains the best, on paper, in the 10-team competition.

They have the creativity and passion of halfback Jesse Southwell, who after missing out on NSW selection this year, is primed to hit the ground running in her third campaign. Her combination with five-eighth Georgia Roche, an England international, should only improve in their second season together.

Southwell's older sister and captain Hannah, a former NSW and Australian representative, will be more confident after returning last year from a season-ending knee injury in 2022.

World Cup-winning Australian forwards Caitlan Johnston and Yasmin Clydsdale lead the pack, and New Zealand-international backs Shanice Parker and Abigail Roache make for a strike pair of centres.

Having signed most of their big names to multi-year deals ahead of last season, the Knights have maintained the nucleus of their side for the past two years. Indeed, they only lost Jasmin Strange and Tiana Davison, now with the Roosters, from last year.

Coming in as a new coach after consecutive title triumphs, Jeffries has had to try and raise the bar for the players, but he commended the desire they had shown to continue to improve.

"The good players want that. The Shanice Parkers, Liv Higgins - they actually said we want to be challenged. They've thrown down the challenge to me on that front, but also themselves," he said.

"The best players often want to hear the truth.

"They're good players in their own rights, but they've got more in them.

"That's the challenge for them, to get the best out of themselves, but the challenge for us as staff to get the best out of them too."

The Knights beat Canberra 28-8 in a trial at Wagga Wagga earlier this month.

Jeffries said that display, and what he had seen from the players in the pre-season, gave him confidence they were capable of contending for a title again in 2024.

"Not once have they wavered around work ethic," he said.

"They've questioned it at times, because seven weeks in a pre-season when you're constantly challenging them, it gets to them at times.

"But with the trial game, we did not see anything that resembles that they are complacent."

Interchange bench

Extended match squad