Newcastle have secured two wins inside a week after smashing Canterbury by 24 points at EnergyAustralia Stadium on Sunday.

On the back of Monday's victory over Manly, the Knights moved within four points of the NRL top eight with four matches left to play and ended the Bulldogs September hopes with a 30-6 thrashing in front of 17,316 fans on a sunny day in Newcastle.

The Knights, who in mid July conceded 52 points to the Canberra Raiders, are now up to 10th on the ladder and face the eighth placed Warriors in a crucial clash in Auckland next weekend.

Newcastle's victory was set-up on the back of a three-try to nil first half, with skipper Kurt Gidley, fullback Shannon McDonnell and hooker Isaac De Gois all scoring tries to open up an 18-0 halftime lead.

Despite the desperate Dogs dominating field position early in the second half, two more tries inside the opening 20 minutes of the second term to Cooper Vuna and Adam MacDougall opened up an unassailable 30-0 margin before Ben Barba gained a late consolation for the visitors.

Knights coach Rick Stone said four points in one week had been an ideal return for the club.

"It has been a good week, absolutely," Stone said.

"There's no doubt backing up what we did on Monday night was important for ourselves and what we think we need to achieve in the last few weeks of the competition.

"The boys had a great result. I thought their goal line defence was super. We had the Dogs down for 105 plays in our half compared to our 74 in their half." The result all but mathematically eliminates the Bulldogs from the finals race, sitting on 18 points, eight behind the Warriors with four matches to play.

But coach Kevin Moore, though disappointed with his team's underwhelming season after making the semis last year, insists the future is positive for his club.

"Our depth, I think, is going to be a lot better, our NYC (youth team) have had a tremendous turnaround after losing their first six or seven games, they're unbeaten over the last 12 weeks," he said.

"Our premier league are on top of the competition and our 16s, 18s, have performed well - we've got four blokes in the Australian schoolboys - so I think it's important that as a club we recognise that we did great last year, it's been a touch disappointing this year, but from a future viewpoint we're working really hard.

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