frankLauda
Tony Butterfield
Is it him or the coaching staff making the call? Yeah he seems to have lost a bit of pace. Not sure really.
Kalyn Ponga discussion
- Thread starter Aidos
- Start date
Defence wins games
Todd Bates
One thing I have learned after following rugby league for over 65 years, it is very unwise to underestimate or downgrade a champion.
Defence wins games
Todd Bates
That’s why this is on the coach. Before this season this rubbish hybrid stuff wasn’t happening.
Go back and watch what was happening in 2023 during the 10 winning run and do reps with that.
It’s not really this hard!
Frank McWilliams
Danny 'Bedsy' Buderus
Surely whatever the problem it is the Coaches decision.
The player can tell the Coach he is right to play but the Coach can assess his game, obtain medical advice and make the choice, play or rest.
So at this stage AOB is happy with his fitness, happy he won’t further damage himself and is the best choice for selection to play, end of storey.
We outsiders don’t have a clue, all guess work
The player can tell the Coach he is right to play but the Coach can assess his game, obtain medical advice and make the choice, play or rest.
So at this stage AOB is happy with his fitness, happy he won’t further damage himself and is the best choice for selection to play, end of storey.
We outsiders don’t have a clue, all guess work
Thieves Like Us
Paul Rauhihi
Under normal circumstances I would agree with you but with a superstar like KP and a weak coach like AOB I don’t think that is the case.
He just needs to strip everything back and play like he did when he first arrived here.....doing basic fullback things, chiming in when there's an opportunity and running it back attacking a broken kick chase looking for opportunities.
All the playmaking rubbish he needs to get rid off and let the halves get him ball
All the playmaking rubbish he needs to get rid off and let the halves get him ball
HarVeeGee13
Danny 'Bedsy' Buderus
Can’t do that with Sharpe at 6 though.
This is why so many of us think the club just needs to bite the bullet on picking one of them at fullback and figuring out a way to benefit from the other moving on. There are reasonable arguments about who’s best to keep but I heavily lean Sharpe.
This is why so many of us think the club just needs to bite the bullet on picking one of them at fullback and figuring out a way to benefit from the other moving on. There are reasonable arguments about who’s best to keep but I heavily lean Sharpe.
Die Hard
Steve Southern
They need to figure out how to make Sharpe and Ponga be threats together like a doubles match in tennis. Depending on who is first receiving/playing the ball the other works as the attacking weapon, both synergising as a hybrid 1/6 set-up better so at any time they can both be doing either aspect.
What was happening is we had 2 genuine halves getting him the ball where he needed it. This year we have sharpe running his outside men out of space because his a natural fullback whos first instinct is to beat his man on the outside instead of digging into the line straight and creating room.
Oh ive seen enough. I hope im horribly wrong but come 2026 we will be playing the highest paid player in the game out of position and one of if not the best up and coming talents in sharpe out of position to accomodate kp. Absolute madness. If the clubs not going to play sharpe at fullback (clearly not going to) he needs to be pushed to the outside backs so we can play 2 ballplaying halves. Surely im not the only one who can see it? Im sure deep down a bloke like dylan lucas agrees
Kurriboy
Danny 'Bedsy' Buderus
We don't need 2 traditional ball playing halves. It would be handy to have one genuine organising ball playing half and one ball running 5/8th, which could be Sharpe but we have Dyl coming next year who isn't really an organising ball playing half.
Ponga in the 1 still kludging up the works. Which is why the calls to move him on to free up the team to play a more traditional style.
Ponga in the 1 still kludging up the works. Which is why the calls to move him on to free up the team to play a more traditional style.
frankLauda
Tony Butterfield
So realistically who would take Ponga off our hands for what we pay him? Is he worth that? Roosters still have Teddy till the end of 26? Warriors maybe. Parramatta have cap space now.
Anyway for this year they need to persevere with what we are doing or move Sharpe to the wing.
Anyway for this year they need to persevere with what we are doing or move Sharpe to the wing.
Didn’t want to get hit by Critter is my feelings, which comes back to him being scared of contact.
So are you saying Slater’s a **** coach too?
He was in a completely different team on Wednesday with competent halves and dummy half but he still played the same way.
DCE, Munster and Grant didn’t play well, but it obviously wouldn’t have been Slaters game plan that they went through all week to have Ponga play as a half when he already has DCE and Munster.
It’s pretty obvious to me that he doesn’t like contact (whether impacted by being injured at the moment I don’t know) so he prefers to throw the pass or kick knowing if he’s the one taking the run he’s going to get smashed.
As much as we hate AOB, at some point the finger needs to be pointed at the player.
HarVeeGee13
Danny 'Bedsy' Buderus
There’s also just a calibre of player where their individual performance isn’t reliant on the coaching. Ponga is supposed to be a player of that calibre. That’s why he gets paid so much. People can say it’s unfair, but whatever, that’s how it is. The same pressure & question marks will come for Luai soon if he doesn’t start playing better, like it did for Luke Brooks, and being a Wests Tiger isn’t an excuse. Luai is protected for the moment by the credit in the bank from four premiership rings… and also you’ll notice that Luai has been heavily critical of his own performances. He was the first to say that he’s playing nowhere near as good as Cleary & Moses and didn’t deserve the Blues jersey this year.
Whereas I would say Ponga, when he has gone for a bit of self-criticism, has phrased it in a way which has annoyed me, ie “We need to be better, we need to look at our game and work hard… and that includes me”, almost as if it’s basically unthinkable that he could be part of the problem and it’s very big of him to say so even though we all know that couldn’t possibly be true.
There’s a reason why, even though they’re around the same spot as us on the ladder, and they’ve gotten smashed a bunch of times, no one is questioning Tedesco, Tino, Payne Haas etc in the way Ponga is being questioned. When you’re on the big money it’s a non-negotiable that you never give anyone reason to question your effort and commitment. Simple as that.
Whereas I would say Ponga, when he has gone for a bit of self-criticism, has phrased it in a way which has annoyed me, ie “We need to be better, we need to look at our game and work hard… and that includes me”, almost as if it’s basically unthinkable that he could be part of the problem and it’s very big of him to say so even though we all know that couldn’t possibly be true.
There’s a reason why, even though they’re around the same spot as us on the ladder, and they’ve gotten smashed a bunch of times, no one is questioning Tedesco, Tino, Payne Haas etc in the way Ponga is being questioned. When you’re on the big money it’s a non-negotiable that you never give anyone reason to question your effort and commitment. Simple as that.
Defence wins games
Todd Bates
Two points here:
I wasn’t referring to Ponga in the SOO match the other night, I was referring to Ponga at the Knights; and
Ponga and the outside backs couldn’t do much the other night in SOO game as their forwards and backs were being monstered by the Blues team.
I apologise if you mistook my posting to mean Ponga’s performance in SOO, and consequently made no inference about Slater’s ability as a coach.
Have a good day mate.
Nah it’s all good mate, I knew you were referring to KP at club level. I was more pointing out that I’m not sure how much longer we can keep blaming the Knights coaching staff for Ponga’s deficiencies at the moment when he played the exact same way for QLD. Very true QLD’s forwards were smashed, but the Knights forwards have most weeks as well.
waynesworld
Logan Campbell
The Knights forwards were completely outmatched against Parra 2 rounds ago. KP had 254 run metres, 6 tackles breaks and 2 line breaks and afterwards people said he played poorly and looked uncommitted. The Knights struggles are certainly to do with how poor KP has played, but there is certainly other bigger issues at play with the teams dysfunction IMO.
Can't wait till next year, just sayin