Upton's top of the class and her best is still to come: Southwell

Knights captain Hannah Southwell has described superstar team-mate Tamika Upton as the smartest player she has played with and predicted the 2023 Dally M winner could be a future coach.

Upton has played a pivotal role in Newcastle’s back-to-back premiership triumphs since joining the club in 2022 and is aiming for a fifth NRLW grand final if the Knights beat Sydney Roosters at Allianz Stadium on Sunday.

The 27-year-old already has a record four premierships with the Broncos and Knights, a State of Origin series win with Queensland and last year won the Jillaroos No.1 jersey for the Pacific Championships, along with the Dally M medal.

Yet, according to Southwell, Upton’s best is still ahead of her.

“She has to be the smartest player I have ever played with,” Southwell said.

“Her game sense and game awareness is incredible, and I think she has really progressed this year and I just can’t wait to see how she goes in the next few years.

“I think she is untapped still; this is all off her own bat, she does a lot of homework, a lot of video.

“She’s always in the video room, she’s always asking questions, she’s always talking to Blake Green actually. It’s scary to see and hopefully in the next couple of years she can be tapped and used to her full potential.

“She definitely likes to steer us in the direction of where we need to go. When she retires and becomes a coach, I definitely want to be around that and where she is.”

After winning back-to-back grand finals in 2022 and 2023, the Knights have the chance to become the first NRLW team to achieve a three-peat.

But after being the team to beat for the past three seasons, Southwell said the Knights weren’t focused on another premiership as much as their ability to play good football.

“I definitely feel like there isn’t as much pressure as last year for us, but yeah there is just that belief to play footy,” Southwell said.

“Whether we get the three-peat or not, that’s not our concern. We just want to play good footy and enjoy each other’s company and just enjoy it all really.

“We spoke at the start of the year about being the hunted, and then we wanted to hunt everyone back.

“We haven’t really spoken about it since, we didn’t want to focus too much on that, we wanted to focus on ourselves internally and develop the way we play footy.

“I feel like that kind of lacked last year, that development, and I guess at the start of this year, a bit of the same.”

Southwell joined the Knights in 2022 after three seasons with the Roosters, while a number of former team-mates have travelled in the opposite direction, including Millie Elliott, Jasmin Strange and Tiana Davidson.

“It’s exciting, obviously a lot of us did play for the Roosters and in 2022 we came across to the Knights, so there is a bit of that rivalry there but there is also definitely respect there,” she said.

“I think they are a great side, and they have done really well this year, I think they would say the same about us. It’s really exciting to see that we are both facing off.

“I would have liked it to be in the grand final but that’s okay, it can be a semi-final. It’s the team that does the little things right that will win this game.”