The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional Rugby League Football Club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. They compete in Australasia’s premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, the Knights joined the top tier competition in 1988; 79 years after the previous Newcastle based team, the Newcastle Rebels, had departed the Sydney competition with the formation of a separate league competition based in the Newcastle region. The club has won two premierships over its history (1997 and 2001) and produced such players as Andrew Johns, Danny Buderus, Matthew Gidley and Paul Harragon.