Newcastle coach Rick Stone says the Knights have their NRL destiny in their own hands after letting slip a promising lead to fall to a 20-12 defeat against the Warriors on Saturday.

The visitors had seemed on course for a fourth win in a row, controlling proceedings at Mount Smart Stadium, before the Warriors nabbed three tries in the last 22 minutes to overturn a 12-4 deficit.

The win lifted the Warriors to sixth spot with 28 points and all but secured their place in the finals.

The Knights meanwhile, slipped to eighth, with South Sydney and Canterbury, who play on Sunday and Monday respectively, having the chance to close to within two points.

"We understand we have our own destiny in our control, we have to take care of that," Stone said.

"We can't worry about other results. We have three games to go, a couple at home, and we have to back ourselves to make the eight on our own term."

Stone said he was happy with his players efforts, but mistakes after halftime had undone them.

"We competed really hard," he said.

"But you make nine errors in the second half and the opposition makes four, generally you are under some sort of pressure and that was no different today."

The loss continued a dismal recent record for the Knights against the Warriors.

They have now lost eight of the last nine encounters with the Warriors, and their last six at Mt Smart Stadium.

Both teams took time to settle, especially the Warriors, whose mistakes meant they found it hard to build momentum.

Newcastle struck first midway through the first half when winger Akuila Uate streaked down the touchline to dive on a Jarrod Mullen cross kick for his 14th try of the season and his seventh in his past four matches.

The Warriors finally got their attack in order as a slick move created the opening for centre Shaun Berrigan to go over.

However, with minutes to go before the interval, the Knights swept downfield from a penalty and centre Adam MacDougall managed to forced the ball down despite plenty of defenders on him.

Skipper Kurt Gidley's second sideline conversion took the visitors out to an eight-point halftime lead.

The Warriors continued to struggle to get things going, but suddenly midway through the second half they got the 13,279 crowd on the their feet with an 80m try.

Prop Russell Packer's offload sent winger Manu Vatuvei on a big run and halfback Shaun Johnson was on hand to score in the corner.

Minutes later, skipper Simon Mannering pounced on a Johnson kick in-goal to score and James Maloney's conversion pushed Warriors into the lead for the first time.

Second rower Feleti Mateo made sure of the points with a try three minutes from time.

Warriors coach Ivan Cleary his players begun the match trying "to play like millionaires", an attitude that was "really disrespecting the opposition, I thought.

"All we did was invite them into some belief that they could win the game," he said.

"But to be able to sort it out is a bit of a feather in the cap for sure."

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