A year after coach Rick Stone was sacked by Newcastle, little has changed for the Knights, as evidenced by their 36-16 defeat to Manly at Brookvale Oval.

Stone was sacked on July 27 last year after managing five NRL wins. This season, under Nathan Brown, the Knights have recorded just one win in 21 rounds.

The Knights equalled a club-record losing streak of 13 against the Sea Eagles on Sunday. It was Manly’s fourth loss in a row.

Newcastle had showed some improvement in recent weeks but none of that was evident in the first half in front of 11,222 fans.

Dylan Walker returned after two weeks out with an off-field hand injury and was one of the home side’s best, as was fullback Tom Trbojevic.

Manly streaked out to a 36-0 lead after 50 minutes then eased off considerably.

The late withdrawals of Jamie Lyon (calf) and Nate Myles (knee) didn’t affect Manly early, and Jorge Taufua crossed untouched in just the fourth minute.

Brayden Wiliame waltzed through some poor Knights defence six minutes later for an 8-0 scoreline.

When Jamie Buhrer brushed his way through the Knights’ line in the 16th minute, it was obvious the visitors were in for another long afternoon.

Newcastle managed to weather the storm through the middle of the first half before Wiliame added his second in the 35th minute.

Daly Cherry-Evans selflessly passed off to Josh Starling, with the line wide open for the big prop to trudge over and help Manly claim a 26-0 halftime lead.

Walker scored shortly after halftime followed by Matt Wright, and with 30 minutes to go Manly led 36-0.

Manly have long had a habit of easing up on the back of big leads at Brookvale and that was the case again on Sunday.

Newcastle were finally on the scoreboard through Peter Mata’utia in the 58th minute.

David Bhana added some more respectability to the score in the 76th minute.

Brendan Elliot scored the visitors’ final try after the fulltime siren.

The win puts Manly two points outside the top eight.