Newcastle have dealt a bitter blow to St George Illawarra’s NRL finals aspirations with a 21-14 upset win on Saturday afternoon at McDonald Jones Stadium.

Having led at halftime on eight occasions this season before ultimately going down, the last-placed Knights broke an eight-game losing streak.

Paul McGregor’s side are in danger of missing the finals, having come into the round in eighth but have Penrith snapping at their heels, equal on 24 points.

The Knights led 14-12 at halftime and the Dragons evened up the scores through a Gareth Widdop penalty goal with 20 minutes remaining.

After a dour and error-riddled second half, the Knights broke the deadlock when Josh King dumped the ball out the back close to the line and Jacob Saifiti scooped it up and scored to give the home side a six-point advantage.

The Knights have lacked composure at key times in 2017 but Trent Hodkinson kept his cool under pressure to nail a field goal in the 79th minute to seal his side’s third win of the year.

Nathan Brown’s team burst out of the blocks to lead 12-0 after 12 minutes after five-eighth Brock Lamb produced an Allan Langer-like grubber and regathered before bombing for Shaun Kenny-Dowall.

The Dragons were twice denied late in the second half by the video referee – Tim Lafai’s effort was disallowed after Jason Nightingale was controversially ruled to have knocked on while contesting a bomb.

Nene MacDonald ran 95 metres to cross betwen the posts only to have it called back after Tyson Frizell was ruled to have pulled back Hodkinson.

Both of the Dragons’ first-half tries came off second-phase play, with Tariq Sims scoring right on halftime to peg back Newcastle’s lead to 14-12 at the break.