Wayne Bennett almost certainly won’t be involved in rugby league’s finals series for the first time in more than two decades this season but the Newcastle coach insists 2012 isn’t a lost year.

Bennett took over at the Knights at the start of the season amid much fanfare and predictions of a top-four finish.

While that hasn’t eventuated, Bennett insists his side can still take plenty from a year in which they emerged late in the season as finals contenders.

“There’s a lot for us to take out of the season and come back and start our pre-season being a lot further ahead because of what we did this year, with some quality players to come into the team,” Bennett said.

“Eight weeks ago, we couldn’t control the footy. We were playing with a lack of discipline and not a lot of intensity in our game, so we were in a hole eight or nine weeks ago.”

Sunday’s 42-20 loss to Manly essentially put paid to the Knights’ finals chances and Bennett will watch the September action from afar for the first time since 1991, when his Brisbane side finished seventh under a top-five finals system.

Newcastle crashed to five successive mid-season losses to look a possible wooden-spoon candidate, before winning six of eight games ahead of the defeat to defending champions Manly.

“I said we wanted to take something out of the season, and the last eight weeks has been a different footy team,” Bennett said.

“We can build on that next year and take some confidence out of that, and that’s our priority – to get some confidence and build on something so, when we come into next year, we’ve got a good start rather than starting from a low base.

“They’ll all know me by that stage and I’ll know them better, but they certainly wanted to take something out of the season and we’ve done that now.”