ONE down, two to go. The Newcastle Knights expect to create history this week by selling out a home game in advance for the second week in a row.
After attracting a capacity 29,108-strong crowd for their 29-10 triumph against South Sydney on the weekend, the Knights anticipate a similar turnout at McDonald Jones Stadium this Sunday, when they host Cronulla in a NRLW-NRL double-header.
"We expect tickets to be sold out by Wednesday," Knights chief executive Philip Gardner told the Newcastle Herald on Monday.
"We sold more tickets for the Sharks game over the weekend than we would normally sell for walk-ups.
"There's been phenomenal interest. The club's never had two sell-outs in a row.
"To hopefully finish in the top six and get a home game in the finals, that would no doubt be three sell-outs in a row, which would be amazing."
It has been more than a decade since the Turton Road turnstiles were under such strain. In the last home game of their 2011 campaign, the Knights drew a crowd of 30,729 for a do-or-die game against South Sydney, then for the 2012 season-opener, 29,189 turned out to watch St George Illawarra 15-14 beat Newcastle in a golden point thriller.
Since then the stadium's capacity has been reduced, so the club-record home crowd of 32,642, set in 1995 against Manly, appears unlikely to ever be broken.
The Knights, who have climbed from 14th to seventh after seven consecutive wins, are attracting an average home crowd of 20,575 this season, their best attendance figures since 2012 (20,919).
