Paul Harragon pulled Mat Croker in tight.
The Chief was among family, friends and well-wishers in the Knights dressing room in the moments after the bruising 19-18 defeat to the Roosters in a bruising NRL grand final at Accor Stadium on Sunday.
Croker was hurting - physically and emotionally.
His partner, Eliza, was acting as a leaning post. Croker, bloodied and still wearing his playing kit, had a black eye from a Lindsay Collins high shot, had nothing in the tank.
Harragon, the Knights legend and 1997 premiership-winning captain, put both arms around Croker in a bear hug and spoke from the heart.
"Chief just said that we did good," Croker told the Newcastle Herald. "We are in the business of giving people hope back home. Everyone back home was proud of us, regardless that we lost. That's the job done. We restored hope back into Newcastle people.
"It is still a pretty low feeling at the moment, but I'm sure in the next week or so, we'll probably reflect on what we did."
Croker, captain Kalyn Ponga and the rest of the Knights were brave, resilient, valiant. But they fell just short. There was no miracle like in 97. No last-minute heroics. No winning try with seven seconds remaining.
There wasn't a repeat of Ray Warren's iconic call after Andrew Johns pulled a rabbit from a hat: "Darren Albert will score. Albert will score. Newcastle have won the grand final."
"I'm shattered," said Knights back-rower Dylan Lucas, who defied medical opinion to return from a dislocated and broken ankle in eight weeks to play a part in the finals series.
"It's hard. You want to be proud of the season you had, but to come so close it hurts.
"It sucks.
"I wish we could have got the result and taken it home."
Croker made a team-high 46 tackles, without a miss, and carted the ball 88 metres from 10 hit-ups, despite playing as secondary ball player.
Then there are the effort areas. He raced back to field a kick, hunted on the inside and helped set the line speed.
Croker had almost been decapitated by a Collins swinging arm in the 15th minute. He was on the end of another high shot later in the first half, which went unnoticed by referee Adam Gee and resulted in a dropped ball.
"I copped a couple," Croker said. "It was a bit unfortunate that I came through with an error. It felt like it was a bit of a turning point."
It wasn't.
In truth, the Knights should not have been in the game.
All the statistics were in the Roosters' favour.
The Roosters had 57 per cent of possession, completed at over 90 per cent and only gave away two penalties.
"For the Knights to only to be beat by one point, it was a superhuman effort," said Johns, who after riding the roller coaster in commentary was in the sheds comforting the players after a herculean effort.
"They just hung in and hung in and hung in. And then towards the end, they could have stolen it.
"What an incredible effort. I couldn't be any more proud of the players and everyone at the club."
After collecting the wooden spoon only a year ago, the revival has only added fuel for what is ahead.
"To come this close drives the hunger even more," Croker said.
"Everyone's saying the same thing - we'll be back
"I'm sure when we kick off our preseason, even before that, the boys will be thinking about how much it hurt. How much they want to be standing up on a podium, rather than being on the other side."
Two players - warriors - won't be part of the group when they reassemble in November.
Dane Gagai will be at the Broncos. Tyson Frizell told teammates on Saturday night that the grand final would be his last game for the club. He is set to join Wests-Tigers.
"They are two pretty special blokes," Croker said. "It's a shame that we couldn't send them out on a win.
"Frizz is someone I look up to. I'm going the miss him a lot as a mate.
And Gags, what he's done for this club. They are going to be tough to replace. They can't be replaced.
"We will enjoy their company over the next few days."
