Knights lay down gauntlet

Victory over faltering Power opens up title race

KEEPING a lid on renewed NPL title excitement looms as the immediate challenge for the Gold Coast Knights after smashing through the remnants of the Peninsula Power’s aura of invincibility on Saturday night.

Entering the Round 21 fixture 12 points adrift of the ladder leaders but with three games in hand, the Knights declared the race for the summit far from over with a sublime 4-0 triumph in front of the Croatian Sports Centre faithful.

Seemingly cruising to the premiership after winning their first 14 games of the season, the Power have now lost three of their last six to open the door for the Knights, Lions and Olympic to challenge for the silverware.

Knights captain Sam Smith’s pre-match comments that it “could be a decent time to play (Power)” proved well founded, with Mitch Nichols opening the scoring in the 34th minute before a Max Brown double and own goal off a long-range Adam Endean effort after the break secured the Knights’ 13th win of the year.

With 11 games still to play, the Knights are now in control of their own destiny but midfield linchpin Brown said it was crucial they remained grounded in the run home.

“You can’t get ahead of yourself, you’ve got to take every game as they come and there’s never an easy game. We’ll take the confidence from this game moving forward but we know there’s a long way to go,” the 23-year-old said.

“We knew leading up to the game it was pretty important for the future of our season. To be in the title race we knew we had to put in a good shift.

“We had a game plan that Grae (Piddick, coach) went through and everyone was on the same page. Whether or not (the Power) having a few losses had an affect or not, I still think the Knights boys showed up and did the job.”

The Knights will now prepare for Saturday night’s second local derby away to Gold Coast United, who yesterday fell 3-1 to Brisbane Roar Youth at Logan.