Newcastle coach Brian Smith says he couldn't have asked for too much more from his players in Monday night's loss to Melbourne.
The Knights had conceded 144 points in their previous three trips to Olympic Park while only scoring 16 points of their own, including last year's 44-0 hammering, but kept the Storm scoreless for more than 50 minutes.
And having likewise kept Gold Coast scoreless in the first half the previous week as they went on to win 13-12 at EnergyAustralia Stadium, Smith said he couldn't fault his team's defence.
"(It was) certainly the best defensive performance from our team this year and I think it'd be right up there with the best from any team this year," Smith said. "We've just worked at it and probably got some guys at the moment that are really committed to defence."
"It's not just what you do until you get the ball back, there's a lot of boys in our team who pride themselves (on their defence), I think we saw that tonight, God knows we had enough of it to do."
"First half they threw absolutely everything at us, they had so much possession (that) it was a record number of plays in a half against us in the two seasons I've been at Newcastle and it would be right up with all the games I've ever coached."
While he was staggered by the 10-3 penalty count in favour of the reigning premiers, and admitted that his players had conceded three or four 'dumb' penalties, Smith wasn't entirely happy.
Having guided the Knights to second-last place in his first season in charge, Smith made no secret of the fact that gallant losses to the competition's leading teams are not what he's about.
"For sure, absolutely, to go out and compete and to keep them to zero for whatever it was, well into the second half, and on the back of that mountainous possession count that was against us throughout the course of the game … to keep them to three tries was a tremendous effort, easily the best by a Newcastle team while I've been here," he said.
"But my job and my desire is not to coach a courageous losing team. So we've got to clean our act up with some of the penalties that we can tidy up, and we've got to do whatever else we've got to do to get some balance."