At some stage during the 2016 NRL season, it hit me that Newcastle Knights were the NRL's Philadelphia 76ers. Everyone in and around the NBA knows what is happening with regards to the 76ers with those involved stating their objectives and how they intend to go about rising up the ranks in the NBA, with clarity. Often in the NRL fans and media tend to focus too much on winning here and now, without the context of their club's predicament laid out in the open.

A lot of this comes from a lack of transparency or willingness to be open about those plans. This is why I respected and enjoyed the change at Penrith, with Phil Gould coming out and laying his '5-year-plan' cards on the table. People knew that the change at Penrith would take some time, which makes copping a few lean seasons or a lack of success more acceptable as fans know that there's short-term pain for long-term gain. In the case of the 76ers and Knights, we all know what is happening and this made all the average performances from the Knights acceptable.

Like the 76ers, there's a future ahead of this Knights team under coach Nathan Brown. What really held the Knights back from enjoying any sort of success this season was the reliance on youth, with young players being thrown to the NRL wolves and with the likes of the Cowboys, Broncos, Sharks, Storm and Raiders playing at a such a level, a team full of youngsters playing ahead of their time is always going to struggle.

Newcastle won one game and drew another, finishing the season with 7 points and a points differential of -495. While they had moments this season when they attacked with entertaining flair, throwing caution to the wind - as you'd expect from a team with nothing to lose - their attack was never good enough to make up for serious defensive woes. Newcastle missed 875 tackles this season, almost 100 more than the Titans in 2nd (799) and this can simply be put down to a lack of experience. With young players in the middle and out on the edges, who are adjusting to the speed and attacking schemes of the NRL, Newcastle struggled to repel teams who enjoyed merely a set in 'good ball' let alone defending multiple sets.

The Knights also ran for the least metres this season with 31,752m. For context, Wests Tigers were the next-worst team but they had 35,052m and no NRL team is going to enjoy any level of success if they are so far behind the rest of the NRL in running metres. Again, the Knights relied on a young forward pack all season and it's hard to expect a team with only one grizzly veteran in Jeremy Smith, competing anywhere close to the same level as even the middle-tier of the NRL.

Just take a look at the three forwards who made the most metres for the Knights this season; Daniel Saifiti, Korbin Sims and Sam Mataora. Saifiti's 20-years-old, Sims is 24 and Mataora is 25, all three are far closer to the start of their NRL journeys than the end and are still learning the craft of being NRL forwards. There's plenty of promise there and they are talented forwards, however to expect them to dominate opposition forward packs is silly.

And that's why Knights fans should be excited about the future, just as 76ers fans are excited about what might happen when all their youngsters settle into the NBA. Getting a bloke like Akuila Uate off their books is a necessity so that the Knights have more funds available to chase those grizzly/established NRL players, with a young core that is going to grow together though those buys will be complimentary pieces.

Guys like the three named above, Jacob Saifiti, Dane Gagai, Nathan Ross, all the Mata'utia brothers, Danny Levi and Trent Hodkinson are the sort of blokes that you can build a club around. Most importantly for me, that's a group of players who resemble 'Newcastle' to me as an outsider. Newcastle doesn't strike me as the sort of place that a big name, glitzy type of signing will go to and it doesn't need to be. Working in Newcastle's favour is that they are a club who's collective is far better than any star name and they have a group of players who can start to really develop the culture and implement what coach Brown wants.

That's backed up by all the local juniors who got to gain NRL experience this season, guys like; Cory Denniss, Jack Cogger, Jaelen Feeney, Dylan Phythian and Brock Lamb. These players are Newcastle and the club will benefit greatly from their early NRL experience, especially experiencing such hardship along with the older players.

Knights fans may be disappointed in finishing last, yet they shouldn't be. There are many NRL clubs who should start to rebuild like the Knights have, but they are trying to do so without wiping the slate clean and enduring some hardship. What I've loved about the Knights this season is that there's a clear plan, everyone can see that the Knights are rebuilding and as long as the club and fans are patient, I get the feeling that we'll see the Knights back in the top-8 soon enough.