In a game certain not to make its way onto a classic matches DVD, the Knights - who were marginally less woeful than the Panthers - chalked up their sixth win of the season and second in three games.
Blues stars Kurt Gidley and Akuila Uate backed up successfully from State of Origin, with Queensland's Petero Civoniceva doing likewise for the Panthers.
Newcastle coach Rick Stone hailed the performance of debutant five-eighth Ryan Stig, whose strong showing was the only bright spot in a woeful encounter.
The 21-year-old - who spent an unhappy spell in North Queensland last season after coming through the ranks at the Knights, before returning this year - was handed his opportunity due to an injury to Tyrone Roberts and the departure of Beau Henry to the Gold Coast.
"Stig was terrific. As a club, we copped a bit of flak about the Beau Henry thing last week and we knew we had a couple of young blokes in Ryan and Tyrone Roberts who could cover Jarrod Mullen and Kurt (Gidley) when he is away," Stone said.
"Today he showed real composure, showed real aggression taking on the line. He probably didn't get as many kicks as he would have liked but, hopefully, that side of his game will come on in the next few weeks."
Knights skipper Gidley, whose two penalties proved to be the difference between the sides, was also impressed by Stig and said he had heeded his advice to keep things uncomplicated.
"He was good for his first game, took the line on well with his strength and confidence, and he was dominant and it was great to see," Gidley said.
"I told him before to keep it simple and he did. He passed early and communicated well."
Panthers coach Matt Elliott bemoaned his side's inability to keep hold of the ball and said he felt, emotionally, his players were down going into the game without the injured Luke Lewis, Michael Jennings, Michael Gordon and key forward Nigel Plum.
"The headline from this one should read 'strange old game'," Elliott said.
"We invented new ways to give up possession and, ultimately, it cost us.
"When you have a line-up as disrupted as we have had this week, you don't expect your greatest continuity, but the unforced errors, losing scrum feeds, players getting the ball pinched off them on play one ... that hurt us.
"I thought our emotional state wasn't as great as it has been. We didn't play with the same aggression in defence and there was probably a bit of volume out of the sting in our carry.
"It would be nice to give a simple answer as to why, but there are a number of factors. We have four international players out and that dilutes the talent we have.
"But we will all sit round and hold hands in a circle, look into each others' eyes and work out why we were just not at our best."
Neville Costigan broke the deadlock for the Knights with a try in the 17th minute - his second in as many games - burrowing his way over after the Panthers were penalised for holding in the tackle deep in their own half.
Penrith's approach play showed plenty of promise, but its inability to keep possession when in good position curtailed at least three scoring opportunities, with one wayward pass flying over the head of David Simmons and into the stands particularly memorable for the wrong reasons.
Young Knights winger Peter Mata'utia, playing in place of the injured James McManus, provided some rare excitement when he was placed on report midway through the first half after catching Lachlan Coote high around the neck in a bone-shuddering hit on the diminutive full-back.
Gidley's penalty in front of the posts extended the Knights' lead to 8-0 just before half-time to round off an opening period which failed to warm up the crowd of 16,652.
The Panthers started the second stanza in perfect fashion when Masada Iosefa held onto a Luke Walsh pass, which looked suspiciously forward, to dart over the line, with Travis Burns adding the extras.
However, any hope of an improvement ended there, with both sides contributing to a crazy five-minute spell which would not have looked out of place in Shakespeare's play A Comedy of Errors.
The madness started when Wes Naiqama's fine 65th-minute run was halted by a David Simmons tackle which saw him cough up the ball.
The resulting scrum for the Panthers was then won against the feed by Richie Fa'aoso to hand the Knights possession once again.
However, Fa'aoso then turned from hero to villain.
Standing almost on top of the Panthers' tryline, Fa'aoso appeared to forget to play the ball, allowing the wily Civoniceva to simply push him over and steal possession.
Uate added some rare quality to proceedings with a fine try just after the hour mark following some good work from Gidley and Keith Lulia.
Coote had no way of stopping the Fijian-flyer as the Knights extended their lead to 14-6.
Iosefa added his second to make it 14-12 and set up a nervy finish for the home side seven minutes from time, but the Knights held on to seal the points.
Knights: 16 (N Costigan, A Uate tries; K Gidley 4 goals)
Panthers: 12 (M Iosefa 2 tries; T Burns 2 goals)
-ABC/AAP
Tags: sport, rugby-league, nrl, nsw, newcastle-2300, penrith-2750 First posted June 18, 2011 19:25:00
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