Mark the 35th minute of Sunday's NRL preliminary final as the hinge on which a storied dynasty and a potential premiership destiny swung.
Penrith and Newcastle had fought a first-half that made both look like worthy foes for the Roosters in next week's grand final.
The Knights faithful turned Stadium Australia into a little piece of the Hunter, proving yet again they would follow their team into hell itself if Sid Fogg's would charter a bus there.
Francis Manuleleua's long-range try, the latest scorching adventure of the screaming Knights, gave the beast inside the 55,000-strong crowd a smell of blood and it turned the Panthers into strangers in their own country.
The Penrith half of the crowd rose for Blaize Talagi's score off a clever Jack Cogger kick, but never has Nathan Cleary, benched before kick-off, copped such treatment on his home turf as he did before he entered the game in the 20th minute.
Just 10 minutes later came the tackle that ended his season as he suffered an graphic fracture to his ankle, also ending Phoenix Crossland's afternoon after he was sent off, and putting this game on the raggedy edge.
In the end, it was the Knights who pushed the Panthers over the side to write their names in history, with a 22-14 win that sends Newcastle to their first grand final in 25 years.
The two sides provided a fascinating contrast from the start as they left the field following the warm-up.
Penrith, the ultimate professionals and avatars of pure ruthlessness, had eyes of steel, a picture of focus.
Newcastle, by contrast, waved to friends and family, faces beaming that they were here together on the verge of a dream.
Rage and joy proved to be equally potent fuels, with rare courage on both sides amid the furious desperation you only see when the stakes are highest.
The Knights finished with 12 on the field after Crossland's dismissal but, somehow, rarely looked shorthanded.
There is a temptation to call that a miracle, but Newcastle didn't need divine intervention to flat-out-play the Panthers in a second half.
They bent occasionally but never broke as Penrith fought hard, denied only by a series of last-gasp efforts from the Knights.
Kalyn Ponga pulled off a tackle on Moses Leota that any footy hit man would have been proud of. Mat Croker dived on loose balls like they were live grenades.
Dane Gagai played like his Newcastle life depended on it, and given he has earned one last day as a Knight, it kind of did.
They were able to take advantage of the Panthers not quite being their razor-sharp selves, as best typified by Smith's first try off a quick tap that caught Penrith on the hop.
The Panthers missed Cleary, their edges blunted, but Casey McLean came agonisingly close to scoring.
It is a mark of the steel in the Panthers that they weren't out of it until Sandon Smith's late intercept try, even with injuries mounting.
Aside from Cleary — already carrying a broken foot into the game — Blaize Talagi did his Achilles, Dylan Edwards hurt his PCL and Isaah Yeo defied belief to play through a torn pec.
They regrouped well in the moments after Cleary's injury, scoring through Lindsay Smith while the game was still in something of a punch-drunk stupor.
But they did not trouble the scorers again as Newcastle ran in three tries in the second half, all of which began from their own side of halfway.
That ability to strike fast and from anywhere on the field is the Knights' greatest gift — it has happened too many times to call this a charmed run or a triumph of abstract, random brilliance.
It has taken them through a high-octane South Sydney, to the heart of Auckland and back and now, a man down and all, through the greatest dynasty many will ever know.
That dynasty is not at its end, but preliminary final losses in each of the past two years show how thin the margins have become.
Penrith are still one of the heavyweights, but the world is changing and Newcastle, with their speed and hunger and endless belief, are the first of the new powers to rise.
Those Knights will be underdogs again next Sunday against the Roosters, with all their glory and splendour, and they must overcome the weight of history.
Of the 117 premiers in the history of Australian rugby league, 115 have finished in the top four. For Newcastle to prevail, it is beyond once in a lifetime and closer to once in the lifetime of the sport.
But after what the Knights have been through and what they have done to get here, the odds seem to matter little.
At this point it feels like there is nothing Newcastle cannot do, no challenge they cannot rise to and no foe they could fear.
