Following a stellar 2024 season, Dane Gagai has swept the Newcastle Knights' key individual awards, including the Danny Buderus Medal for the club's NRL Player of the Year honour.

Among a competitive emerging team roster, the evergreen 33-year-old has continued to prove his play out wide is not to be underestimated within the Knight's walls.

In his ninth season at Newcastle – split either side of four seasons spent at Redfern for South Sydney – Gagai was one of the Knights' most consistent and reliable talents in a fluctuating campaign that scraped into back-to-back finals for a second year in a row via a last-round victory.

The Torres Strait Islander claimed the Player of the Year Award from the coaches, the NRL Players' Player award from his his peers and the Knights' Gladiator of the Year award from the Once A Knight Old Boys' former players.

The three trophies, considered Knights' majors in-house, saw Gagai secure the clean sweep for the first time after 192 career NRL matches while snaring his second Danny Buderus Medal.

But in the characteristic tradition of Newcastle blue-collar humility, Gagai struggled to come to grips with basking in the glory like the veteran deserved.

The pain of the Knights' narrow elimination final defeat to North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville during the dying moments on Saturday night was still hard to accept.

"Honestly, it is bittersweet – something's a bit off from winning these (the three awards)," he told supporters after the awards presentation on the club's live stream.

"(They're) a nice individual achievement, but I play the sport to win comps and we do that as a team.

"It is nice to be acknowledged by your peers, your coaches, the old boys, but I just wish we were still playing."

Gagai proved this season that his durability has continued after the centre crossed for eight tries, breaking through 143 tackles over the course of 22 NRL matches and averaging 147 run metres per appearance.

While valuing the confidence and backing of coach Adam O'Brien and his first-grade staff that cast the votes, the one-time Mackay junior via way of the Brisbane Broncos struggled to rank which honour he held in highest regard after last winning the prestigious Player of the Year award back in 2016.

"There were a few mixed emotions to be acknowledged by your peers that you take the field with week in, week out," he said.

"Then also being acknowledged by the old boys that wore that jersey before you that it's an achievement by itself.

"Then to, obviously, get the Danny Buderus award on top of all that was also nice."

The 2023 club life member added that every time he's stepped out to represent Newcastle it is a considerable honour.

But Gagai also explains his initial naivety of the city that next year will be his hometown for an entire decade.

"The club just means so much – I came here in 2012 when they gave me a real opportunity when the Broncos let me go early," he said.

"I didn't know too much about Newcastle and as I have said before, I didn't even know it had beaches – I knew it was a blue-collar town, like a steel city, hardworking place.

"But then a few players took me down one day to Merryweather for a coffee, I felt I started to fall in love with the place, but not just the place but the people.

"When I left it after my first stint to go to South Sydney, I said the hardest thing was leaving the fans because they're all so supportive.

"They love their team; they love their town.

"I was very grateful that I got to represent them again."

Dylan Lucas was announced the club's Community Player of the Year over his outstanding involvement in a number of community initiatives and related programs this year.

That recognition has also been acknowledged by the NRL hierarchy, with Lucas one player across a handful of clubs nominated for the Ken Stephen Medal.

The list of initiatives that the 24-year-old Wiradjuri man participated in included painting and designing players' boots for the Knights' Indigenous Round and collaborating with the Aboriginal-owned workplace supplies company, Cultural Choice, to both raise awareness and support the prevention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth suicide.

Lucas was also involved in the launch of the Newcastle Knights' Reconciliation Action Plan, emphasising his dedication to cultural awareness and unity.

The backrower said he generously gives his time because of the Knights fans and for his local community.

"They give a lot to us each week when they turn up in their 20s of thousands at the stadium," Lucas said.

"So if we can get out and do our bit, put smiles on their faces, I am up to going out for our community."

Outgoing Newcastle NSW Cup and back-to-back NRLW premiership coach, Ronald Griffiths, gave an adoring farewell speech in front of the Newcastle faithful.

After addressing the sponsors, players and staff, the 46-year-old spoke from the heart to his wife Chantal who was in the audience on one of the dining tables.

The Gomeroi man, after two seasons in charge of turning around the previously winless Knights NRLW side to claim a 16-2 win/loss ratio, will pack up and move to Auckland next year to restart the New Zealand Warriors women's program.

The Warriors, one of the original four teams in the NRLW competition, were forced to pull out at the end of the 2020 season after three years until the pandemic made short-term travel in a COVID-19 bubble in Australia near impossible.

"What a journey?" Griffiths said to his wife in the audience.

"After three years, we're enriched for the experience.

"We'll have memories that will last a lifetime.

"People say don't take your football home or don't take your work home with you, but I used to take it home to you with unwavering support and your unwavering guidance and your advice was to say 'you do it your way' but you keep me on track.

"So I am genuinely indebted to you for that."