Ex-Knights Watch

Oliver said:
Maybe the Dogs bringing in AOB could be what gets Ponga over the line?
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That was my first thought when I heard dogs trying to sign AOB as their attack coach

Gould is always 2 or 3 steps ahead of most, so it would make sense if that’s what they are planning

Still prefer we keep Ponga
 
Wicket said:
That was my first thought when I heard dogs trying to sign AOB as their attack coach

Gould is always 2 or 3 steps ahead of most, so it would make sense if that’s what they are planning

Still prefer we keep Ponga
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If Ponga wants to play AOB ball he can go.
If he wants to try and play to his strengths under an attack minded coach with Brown & Smith, he should give it a real hot crack in 2026.
 
krustykraz said:
If Ponga wants to play AOB ball he can go.
If he wants to try and play to his strengths under an attack minded coach with Brown & Smith, he should give it a real hot crack in 2026.
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If Ponga leaves the whole town should get wooden paddles and just spank him out of town 1997 style down to the central coast.


Oh at least this plays out
 

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jamesgould said:
I find the animosity from Knights fans towards Ponga so weird.
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I don’t think anyone reasonable has any animosity for KP by definition of the word.

But people make good arguments against him is all, does he drift heavily in and out of games? Yes, does he get injured a lot? Yes.

So far in his very limited game time in his position in 2024 Sharpe outdid KP in what fans want to see from the fullback, ie. someone that is always switched on, supporting and reliable.

The idea that Sharpe can slot in at fullback and play a Papanhuyzen role is believable as they have the same style but also not taking up a huge chunk of the cap like KP is, that same old KP that was stepping around defenders and hitting wingers with bullet passes are long gone.

Sharpe grabbed international rep honours with 14 games under his belt and yet Ponga still waits around not knowing to play for the country of his birth or heritage so it’s turned into neither want to pick him, it shows his currently mentality of “not sure” which has bled into his game, many are sick of paying a guy 1.2-1.4m to a guy that drifts a lot and isn’t reliable when we could spend the money to strengthen the main squad and depth of it.

If Ponga was another random player doing what he is doing now would he get that money or is he being paid on what he used to be with hope he can return to that? Because that KP is gone, with Sharpe waiting that next contract for KP will drop a lot I’d say under the ruthless nature of POS and his recruitment style, he knows we don’t need him anymore so it’s either “take less or goodbye”

KP at his best is amazing and the best attacker in the entire comp easily, problem being that ten game winning run was the first time EVER we have seen him string it all together game after game and the next year he lost it all again.

KP would HAVE to have a huge 2026 to show he is worth it to O’Sullivan otherwise it’s goodbye/accept less than 1 million
 
Look I got *very* frustrated with Kalyn this year but feel bad about it now, heat of the moment stuff about how poorly we were playing, going back and looking at those games removed from that frustration, feel like the way we set up did him no favours & he was clearly playing injured a lot of the time.

I do get a bit in my feelings watching Reece Walsh atm because I think they're very comparable talents, but Walsh I feel has developed more despite being younger - Kalyn has improved over the years, but honestly he kind of just developed into a better version of what he was in our first game with us, rather than truly undergoing the evolution AOB has seemingly always chased with him. This notion of Kalyn being the dominant playmaker/the halfback from fullback, it does not align with Kalyn's traits/playstyle, but you actually could do that with Walsh I reckon - just a more complete skillset there, and if Walsh decided he wanted to play in the halves permanently I'm very confident he'd be able to do it no drama - reads the game better, more versatile as a playmaker, etc. For a long time I was convinced that Walsh tearing teams apart more consistently was because he gets to play behind Payne Haas, and yeah that probably is part of it, but it's not the whole story. I think Reece may just be a better overall footy player.

But irrespective of that, Kalyn is one of the biggest talents our club as ever had, and there isn't some cardinal rule about how footy players need to grow and develop that he's violated. It's sort of like I'm dinging Nathan Cleary for having a playing style that overwhelmingly lends itself to being a ball-dominant 7 and not being able to play as a second fiddle if required. Okay but look at how good a team built around him can be.

In a well-functioning team that plays to Kalyn's strengths better, he's easily good enough to be the best player on a contender. Failing to build that team is what we should be frustrated about.

But yeah some Knights fans have always just hated him. Literally just for some vibe he gives off + the fact he's not a local junior. The concussion susceptibility taken as proof he's soft (I guess Boyd Cordner was too then?). This, I've never understood.
 
mozza said:
Agreed. You just know that they were calling him the best player in the game after the first couple of rounds this season too.
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It's because we really, really want him to be. Having the best player in the game is pretty important to the identity of the club. Has been for a long time. Because take that away atm and we're kind of just a team that alternates between being mid-table and a spoon contender - not a lot else to hang one's hat on.

Also I don't think he's the highest paid players these days, but we gave him a contract a fair bit further north of $1 million than any other club was willing to go at that time. If he's literally the best player the investment is justified.

But I'm happier to take him as he is going forward. If we can be a top four side and he's "only" a top ten player, because the team around him is better, I'd probably care a lot less about how good any individual player is!
 
I'd say from that Origin game 3 in 2022 to the first few games this year, he was consistently our best player by miles, and don't forget prior to that he rated very highly in the Dally Ms a couple of seasons.

Sadly we've never given him the support he needed, he's by and large been our only points generating attacking weapon, so gets very heavily marked - but still produces points ... and yeah, this year was heavily injury affected.
 
KPGreatness said:
KP at his best is amazing and the best attacker in the entire comp easily, problem being that ten game winning run was the first time EVER we have seen him string it all together game after game and the next year he lost it all again.
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Absolutely fundamentally disagree with this.

In fact this season showed for me the difference between having Ponga in the side and not. The halves situation in 2024 was just as crazy as this year. 2024 with Ponga there we scrape into the 8. This year with him gone, we're wooden spooners.

I'm not saying it's 100% on him, but he's a major part of it. No way we win the spoon if he plays the majority of games this year.
 
It's all about a balanced player roster.
If you could name anyone to play in a grandfinal for us, you'd name Ponga and Turbo Tom and Latrell Mitchell etc - but are any of those guys good value to a playing roster?
The don't play in the halves and they are all injury prone.
Is Dylan Brown a better big money player for us? Probably not, but at least he will be in a position to lead the team around and he is in for most games. He is a better player to build a team around due to his position and reliability.

Anyway, if I were the coach, i'd rather spend the Ponga money on 3 good firstgraders than a guy who will win us a handful of games a year.
 
jamesgould said:
Absolutely fundamentally disagree with this.

In fact this season showed for me the difference between having Ponga in the side and not. The halves situation in 2024 was just as crazy as this year. 2024 with Ponga there we scrape into the 8. This year with him gone, we're wooden spooners.

I'm not saying it's 100% on him, but he's a major part of it. No way we win the spoon if he plays the majority of games this year.
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Yep the popular narrative about 2023 is wrong. It's popularly framed as "they were headed for oblivion, then Ponga came back in and single-handedly dragged them on that winning streak". It's just not accurate. That team was playing well without him.

The whole time he's been with us, 2023 was his career low for ball receipts per game, and his career high for try involvements per game. The best version of Ponga is fewer, higher quality touches. He's not the guy who is the reason your team is good, he's the guy who changes a good team into a great one.

Figure out how to be a good team again and Ponga will get more Dally M's and have a real shot at getting us to a grand final.
 
Billy said:
It's all about a balanced player roster.
If you could name anyone to play in a grandfinal for us, you'd name Ponga and Turbo Tom and Latrell Mitchell etc - but are any of those guys good value to a playing roster?
The don't play in the halves and they are all injury prone.
Is Dylan Brown a better big money player for us? Probably not, but at least he will be in a position to lead the team around and he is in for most games. He is a better player to build a team around due to his position and reliability.

Anyway, if I were the coach, i'd rather spend the Ponga money on 3 good firstgraders than a guy who will win us a handful of games a year.
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The thing is though that there are two competitions, the week to week of the NRL, and then after that to actually win the premiership, a guy "who will win us a handful of games a year" becomes pretty essential. The Raiders had a lot of "good first graders", ask those fans if they wish they had a guy who's actually a big game player in that squad. Been a lot of speculating about why they lost and talk about them being unlucky, but they were only still in that Broncos game to begin with due to luck. They lost because they didn't have another level to go to. Broncos did. His name is Reece Walsh.

Also I think you may have a bit of a skewed understanding of what players are getting paid now if you think you can sign "three good firstgraders" with Kalyn's salary. With that amount of money you can get Adam Elliott, Jack Hetherington and Jack Cogger...
 
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