“Everyone has some nervous anticipation, but also a lot of excitement,” says Newcastle’s lord mayor, Nuatali Nelmes. “That’s because … ‘could it be possible?’”

Newcastle is currently the epicentre of rugby league, chasing both men’s and women’s premierships. On Saturday, the Knights’ NRLW side host a double-header which includes their top-of-the-table clash against the Roosters, just two weeks out from the finals. A day later at the same ground, the men’s team host the Canberra Raiders in the club’s first home NRL final since 2006.

“There’s so much excitement around the team, not just our team, but the men’s team and even the club in general,” says NRLW hooker Nita Maynard.

This level of excitement is a significant change. The men’s team has endured a period of mediocrity, highlighted by three straight wooden spoons beginning in 2015.

But the support for the club has never wavered. It is during the difficult times when the city’s true nature emerges, according to lifelong Knights fan and venue manager of McDonald Jones Stadium, Dean Mantle. “The club has had some up and down years,” he says. “But ultimately the support has stayed really consistent, the fans are incredibly rusted on, and they’re really supportive.”

The Knights averaged crowds of around 15,000 per home game in the three years they finished on the bottom of the NRL ladder. This year, the club has sold out its past two regular season matches at the 29,000-capacity ground, for the first time ever. The last tickets for Sunday’s final against the Raiders were snapped up in minutes on Tuesday.

Nelmes says residents are already feeling the buzz. “Not just the city of Newcastle, it goes up the valley. When the Knights are winning, everybody’s in a good mood, everybody is buoyant, people are happy.”

Rugby league and the happiness of Novocastrians are closely intertwined. The club won its first men’s premiership in 1997, months after BHP announced it would close its local steelmaking plant, providing a bright spot in a challenging period.

Since a second premiership was secured in 2001, the Hunter has undergone significant change. A 2017 report prepared for the Hunter Joint Organisation of Councils found 84% the population growth in the Hunter region since 2001 was in greater Newcastle.

“As you move up the valley there is still quite a heavy employment reliance on coal mining and, up to Cessnock, they’re obviously really hardcore rugby league areas – which is great for the sport and a great breeding ground for talent,” Nelmes says. “One of our challenges is really that economic diversification right up through the valley, not just in the greater Newcastle metropolitan region.”

From behind the wheel of his Uber, 58-year-old Brad Newman – a retired tradie – jokes he doesn’t often agree with the Lord Mayor. But in this case, he supports the city’s transformation. “We’ve still got a bit of shining to do, a bit of polishing”. Pointing to the cranes in the sky erecting several new residential towers, he says: “Throw that population into the city, it just makes the city more viable and it’ll become better and better, year after year.”

More than 30,000 extra people – equivalent to more than 20% growth – have been squeezed into the Newcastle council area since 2001. Andrew Johns famously skated down King St in the Newcastle CBD celebrating the 1997 triumph, but the streets look different today. “NUspace”, the modern box-like construction that houses Newcastle University city campus, now towers over several city blocks. Nelmes says the majority of the city’s employment is now in “the knowledge industry”.

In front of this background, Newcastle’s rugby league success looks different in 2023, too. Newcastle joined the senior women’s rugby league competition the NRLW in 2021, and finished winless in their debut campaign. But last season, the Knights stormed to a premiership behind the electric play of fullback Tamika Upton, rookie halfback Jesse Southwell and their talented teammates. The group were given keys to the city to mark their triumph, in front of hundreds of fans at a civic reception.

The premiership was an extraordinary turnaround that reignited the fire of ambition at the club. Knights NRLW coach Ronald Griffiths says the resources and experience around his part-time team pale into comparison next to the fully professional NRL side. But he believes there’s no doubt the men have taken a cue from their NRLW colleagues.

“When you’re winning, the community really gets behind you,” he says. “They’re behind you when you’re not winning, but they see how much that grows when you are winning. The men have certainly witnessed that last year and then probably have learned a little bit from that.”

In his Uber, Newman agrees. “They kick-started some passion, desire. Everyone was on board with the girls. It’s something pure and raw about what they do,” he says. “I think the fellas probably saw what was happening, and what can happen when you actually do put it together.”

In 2022, only the Wests Tigers won fewer NRL matches than the Knights. That makes the club’s turnaround, and in particular Sunday’s elimination final against the Raiders, highly improbable. But the way the Knights have done it is barely conceivable. Languishing low on the ladder in mid-season, Newcastle have steadily built a run of victories that now stretches to nine matches.

Mantle, overseeing operations at the stadium, knew this season would be special early on . Despite a narrow defeat to Penrith in April, the home crowd roared its “New-cas-tle” chant at the final whistle. “The game was over, they’d just lost. And the whole stadium stood up and chanted,” he says. “A bit of a chill went down the spine.”

Nelmes, as Lord Mayor, has been forced to cast her mind towards tentative bookings for civic spaces in October, just in case of grand final success.

“After seven straight [wins] – this is going back a couple of weeks – I’d go to the gym, and some young men would come up and go, ‘What are we going to do if we win?’ And I said, ‘Well, we’re going to have a big party.’”

She wants to make it clear, she’s not expecting another grand final victory. As the fifth-place finishers, the Knights are rank outsiders. But – then again – Novocastrians have never been afraid of hope.