Known as "The Newcastle Way", the one-page document outlines the characteristics that chief executive Matt Gidley and fellow Knights great Paul Harragon believe made the club successful in the past and have helped the team start the 2015 season with four wins in their first four games under new coach Rick Stone.

"Our club was built on playing a really committed style with a really competitive team and we have been able to see that the last few weeks with our team, which has been great," Gidley said. "It is important that the team has ownership in whatever type of culture you are trying to build at the club and our team has certainly got that and they are certainly playing in the committed manner that we expect."

By "committed", Gidley means tough, gritty and uncompromising, with a never-say-die attitude that was the trademark of Knights teams from their entry into the premiership in 1988.

Former captain Tony Butterfield even wrote in The Newcastle Herald on Friday that the Knights had an "on-field presence that was long respected by visiting teams as 'The Newcastle Way'."

For examples, think of Harragon's thunderous collisions with Mark Carroll, Marc Glanville opting to play in a 1995 finals match against Manly after suffering a depressed cheekbone fracture in a previous match, or Andrew Johns leading Newcastle to premiership glory in 1997 with a punctured lung.

"The Newcastle Way is the way that we view success," Harragon said. "What it really means is having belief in ourselves again. When the game first started in 1908, Newcastle was in that competition, so we have a rich tradition ... and we know how to play the game of rugby league as well as anyone. But over the past 10 years there has been a bit of decline in that belief."

Despite being coached by Brian Smith or Wayne Bennett for six of the past eight seasons, the Knights haven't finished higher than seventh since 2006 and there was a growing disconnect between the club and the Newcastle community, whose passion for "their" team was legendary.

The NRL's takeover of the club from Tinkler last June coincided with a run of eight wins from their remaining 11 matches and the Knights have surprised most outsiders with the way they have started this season.

"We wanted to come out of the blocks pretty quickly to show the fans where the club is heading," assistant coach and former skipper Danny Buderus said. "I guess the boys are playing a little bit like the way the fans want them to play and that brings smiling faces around the community.

"All anyone wanted the last few years was to hang in games and grind them out and we are playing that way at the moment. It does help when you have got the board and everyone on the same page, and heading in the right direction. Everyone at the club is enthusiastic to see it do well."

Few more so than Harragon, who has been involved with the Knights in some capacity for virtually every season since 1988 and served as chairman for the four seasons the club was under Tinkler's control.

"The way we do things is our way and we believe that is how we will achieve success,"  Harragon said. "People who come into the club now, they fit into our style, our values and our ways.

"It is already written in our business plan that this is who we are and there is only a small window of tolerance of the type of people that we want and who our town and everyone involved wants. So if you are not that type of person you won't be asked to come here. I think all clubs should do that but we really lost our way for a bit and this is a long-term project we believe will bring success."

Gidley said one of the principals of the club's new philosophy was a focus on home-grown talent and while Newcastle management conducted an exhaustive search for a coach to replace Bennett, they eventually settled for a Novocastrian in Stone, who had been involved with the Knights since 2006 and had previously coached the NRL team between the three-year stints of Smith and Bennett.

"Rick certainly understands Newcastle, he understands the culture of Newcastle and he understands the type of team the community wants," Gidley said. "He has got a really talented roster and we are certainly not playing to our full potential just yet, but those traits we have talked about have certainly been demonstrated by the team and have enabled us to hang in there and win some games we may not have won before."

Should the Knights beat St George Illawarra at Hunter Stadium on Saturday night, it will be the club's most successful start to a season since 2002, when they won their opening six matches, and with six of their next nine games at home before a bye in round 14, Newcastle fans are entitled to start thinking about the finals.

Star five-eighth Jarrod Mullen praised the appointment of Buderus and Craig Sandercock, who has returned to his previous role as an assistant to Stone after three seasons in charge of Hull KR, and said the Knights were playing a different style than under Bennett.

"I suppose Wayne is all about completion rates and that does work," Mullen said. "We like to throw the ball around and I think you see how potent our outside backs are out wide and you like to give them the ball as much as we can. When you have Akuila Uate and Jimmy [James McManus], Dane Gagai and Joey [Leilua] out wide, you want to give them the ball as much as possible. The way Stoney is coaching, it's good to watch and I know the fans are appreciating it.

"We always thought we'd start the year well but we never thought we'd be going for five from five. I don't think anyone would. The brand of footy we are playing at the moment and the sides we've been beating have been encouraging. We have to give credit to Craig Sandercock, Danny Buderus and Stoney and all the coaching staff that have put together some game plans and all the boys have been sticking to it and it's been working so far."