Newcastle kept their top-eight hopes alive with a comfortable 39-12 victory over a lacklustre South Sydney in Saturday's NRL match at EnergyAustralia Stadium.

Newcastle did it easy, running in eight tries to two, in front of the home side's best crowd of the season of 23,182.

In a free flowing match, which took 20 minutes to ignite, the Knights took the ascendancy with Kurt Gidley pulling the strings and keeping Souths' defence guessing.

An Akuila Uate try after 21 minutes was followed by an easy Gidley try set up by Danny Buderus soon after.

Nathan Merritt put the Rabbitohs back in it with a try close to the post but two tries to Adam McDougall, one apiece to Chris Houston, Cameron Ciraldo and Mark Karawana and another to Uate sealed the deal for the Knights.

Merritt scored again for the Rabbitohs but it was a sound Newcastle performance that will give the club hope of climbing into the top eight.

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