Rugby league fans arrived at Hunter Stadium on Sunday afternoon expecting a tough physical encounter, and that's exactly what they got with the Tricolours proving too good, running out 28-12 winners.
Despite giving away huge amounts of field position on the back of a 14-9 penalty count the Tricolours rallied and proved ruthless in both attack and defence, to move to within two points of the the first placed Rabbitohs.
In a game where Sonny-Bill Williams was put on report for a high shot the Tricolours never trailed in the match, that will be remembered for its brutal physicality.
The tone was set early on in the encounter with Williams pulling off two massive hits on Uate and Mason to the roar of travelling Roosters supporters.
While the home side did manage to draw level a quarter of the way through the match it was the Tricolours who played from in front and never looked back thanks to a superb effort from the tricolours forward pack.
Boyd Cordner was clinical in defence, whilst adding to his impressive try scoring tally for 2013.
After feeling each other out for the opening quarter of the match, it was Shaun Kenny-Dowall who finally put the Tricolours in front, leaping over the Knights fullback to take a Mitchell Pearce bomb and plant it down.
Off the Tricolours very next set, Knights fullback Darius Boyd caught a Tricolour bomb and raced the length of the field to level the scores.
Doing little to enhance his reputation, Boyd then threw the ball at the chaser Tuivasa-Sheck.
The Knights seemed to be gaining some ascendancy before Michael Jennings took an intercept to run 80m down field, his closer chaser being Daniel Tupou.
After dominating filed position early in the second half it was two forwards combining to add the Tricolours first of the second half.
Issac Liu charged at the Knights line and managed an offload to Daniel Mortimer who gave a simple ball to Sam Moa who did a great job backing up to cross over and score the try.
The Tricolours continued to leak penalties in the second half, it finally caught up with the visitors when a fluent back line movement saw James Mcmanus cross over out wide.
After five straight penalties on our goal line, the Knights decided to finally go for a kick at goal, which they did successfully to reduce the lead to a converted try.
As they have done all season the Tricolours kept up their intensity and were rewarded with two late tries.
A nice short ball from Maloney ended up in the hands of Cordner who showed great pace to sprint forty metres and score in the corner before Sonny-Bill Williams crashed over just two minutes later to seal the result for the Chooks.
