NEWCASTLE coach Brian Smith has spoken individually to his players about the importance of sending departing captain Danny Buderus out of the NRL with one last finals series.

The Knights began this round in eighth place, yet were forced back out over the weekend as the crowded middle section of the table again changed shape from game to game. But Newcastle can finish the round back in the top eight by beating Gold Coast at Skilled Park tonight.

Buderus is joining English club Leeds next season. Barring injury, he has a guaranteed five games left with the Knights - or more if they can make the finals. Smith said the team owed it to their champion hooker to make sure he can play more.

"There isn't one person at this club, or in the whole of Newcastle, who wouldn't love to see Danny Buderus leave the NRL in the best possible way," Smith said yesterday. "And that would be by playing finals footy one last time. Getting near to the finals won't be good enough. We have to milk everything out of the situation we're in as a team at the moment and make sure we go on and get there.

"I've had some private chats with individual guys in the team about that. Most of them were already thinking the same way, but I just thought it was important to reinforce things.

"It's not a big publicity thing about 'doing it for Danny' or anything like that.

"It's just about making everyone aware that we've got a good chance to do the right thing by him, and that it's important that we take that chance."

Newcastle have a tough finish to the regular season, with a home game against Melbourne in the penultimate round and an away game in Brisbane in the final round.

Smith would never write those games off, but the last thing the Knights need is to make them do-or-die games by not getting enough of the right results against the Gold Coast, Canberra (away) and North Queensland (home).

There is no reason Newcastle can't finish a little higher than eighth if they keep winning. But they are out of business as far as finishing in the top four and getting a home game on the first weekend of the finals is concerned, meaning their game against the Storm will serve as Buderus's last appearance at EnergyAustralia Stadium.

"Emotion can be a very strong factor in sport, and beating Melbourne at home would mean a lot, as a way of marking Danny's last home game," Smith said.

"But I think that making the play-offs would be even more important in terms of finding the right way to send him off, so what we've got to do is make sure we get enough wins over the last five rounds to make that happen."

Smith said he is looking for some starch in defence against the Titans.

"A few weeks ago we really needed to improve our attack," he said.

"We needed to ask more questions of the opposition and we have started to do that.

"Now we need to get some more intensity into our defence, to get us through these last few rounds, and, hopefully, into the finals."