Newcastle Knights coach Ron Griffiths believes the opportunity for his finals-bound team to play at a freshly opened Allianz Stadium is reward for effort.
The Knights are unbeaten in three rounds of their second NRLW campaign and face their toughest test to date in defending champions Sydney Roosters on Sunday.
The top-of-the-table match will be just the fifth sporting event to be staged at the new $830 million state-of-the-art Moore Park facility and is being played ahead of the NRL qualifying final between the Roosters and Rabbitohs.
"To be able to play at that stadium is fantastic," Griffiths said.
"To play before a semi-final, which is a local derby, I've got no doubt the crowd will stream in and watch the game and the players deserve that.
"They would play in front of no one and it wouldn't bother them because they just love turning up and playing footy. But they deserve the accolades because these players work extremely hard. They're grateful for their opportunity and they love the game."
The Knights have beaten Brisbane, Gold Coast and Parramatta to share equal footing with the also-unbeaten Roosters on six points.
The winner will take the outright competition lead and Newcastle complete the regular season against the third-placed Dragons.
But Griffiths said the main focus for last season's wooden spooners was continued improvement ahead of an historic first NRLW finals appearance for the club.
"We've got a game cycle that we stick to, it's very basic," Griffiths said. "It's around the fundamentals of the game and the effort areas ... The big thing for us is making sure that we can tick that off each week and improve.
"We believe we've still got a long way to go in that. We're a totally new team from a perspective of, if we look at our spine, none of them have played together before.
"The big thing for us is making sure that we can really finetune our attack now. The perceived pressure to make the semi-finals is off, now we can focus on just really finetuning things."
Knights teenage halfback Jesse Southwell will again play a key role as Newcastle target their fourth win from as many starts.
"She's a very level-headed 17-year-old and some of things she does on the field show maturity beyond her years," Griffiths said.
"I've got no doubt as we keep building those parts of her game she'll have a fantastic back end of the year.
"And, I have no doubt oppositions have watched video and they're really targeting her and trying to make her feel uncomfortable. But she doesn't get flustered, just does her job to the best of her ability."
The Knights have shown plenty of grit and determination in every challenge before them to date.
They came from behind to score with less than three minutes remaining to clinch an 18-16 win over the Eels at McDonald Jones Stadium last Sunday.
It followed 32-14 and 16-12 victories over the Broncos and Titans respectively.
"The big thing from our perspective is we've won three different ways," Griffiths said. "The first week we played extremely good and everything flowed nicely for us and the Broncos were a touch off so it helped us.
"The second week we went up to the Gold Coast and they were tough. They really took it to us through the middle of the park and ... we had the sort of resolve where we just kept turning up for each other.
"Parramatta were certainly desperate ... but true to our form, our defensive resolve and grit, we just kept turning up and we were able to get away with it in the end."
The NRLW round-four game between Newcastle and the Roosters kicks off at 1.10pm.
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