"The club has got to make a bit of a choice with the players with that type of stuff," he said.

"That's one of their downfalls of the past.

"If they don't change their ways then not much is going to change around here."

Bennett came to the club promising the Dragons would develop into a tougher outfit after being criticised for being unable to grind out victories under former coach Nathan Brown.

The Dragons responded in the opening rounds of the NRL competition with four victories from five games on the back of some bruising defensive efforts.

But Bennett admitted some poor discipline had crept back into St George Illawarra's play in Saturday night's loss.

"Penalties are just a huge issue in the game," he said.

"You can't always get the ones you want and you get some against you that you don't want, but you have to live with it.

"But I think three of our tries came from penalties and we piggy-backed them out of it.

"It takes all the pressure off and gives them a chance to score tries."

Newcastle coach Brian Smith praised the Knights ability to respond to a 14-6 half-time deficit, scoring three quick tries to surge to a 24-14 lead against one of the form teams in the NRL over the early rounds of the still-young NRL season.

"It probably wasn't one of the best spectacles, it's certainly not the way we've been playing most of our footy this year," Smith said.

"We decided on having a crack at playing a different style and seeing how'd they go against a team that's playing that style of footy itself.

"We tested ourselves against a team that everybody is talking about them, being premiership favourites and all that stuff.

"I think we've had three or four of those premiership favourites so far this year and we'll probably have three or four more before the season's out."