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Opinion
Kalyn Ponga is waiting until midseason to decide if he will join the Dolphins for next season, according to reports on Monday morning.
His contract runs until 2024, but with two years in his favour, he could walk out at the end of this season if he were to get a good enough offer from elsewhere.
Ponga is thought to be top of the list for marquee signings in Redcliffe, and Dolphins recruitment manager Peter O’Sullivan, was at the Knights-Bulldogs trial in Newcastle last Monday.
The general consensus is that the signing should be a Queenslander and in one of the spine positions, which immediately limits their options.
Cameron Munster, the starting Maroons No. 6, is signed until 2023 at the earliest with the Melbourne Storm, Daly Cherry-Evans for even longer at Manly and other options like Reece Walsh not quite established.
If Ponga were to wait until midseason, as suggested in the Daily Telegraph, it would be very bad news for Newcastle.
Though they largely performed well in trials and could be expected to improve on last season’s 7th-place finish, their schedule is front-loaded with some of the hardest games that they will face.
The Knights visit the Roosters, Panthers and Sharks as well as host the Storm, Sea Eagles and Eels in their first eight rounds, with a home tie against the Tigers and a trip to Wollongong to face the Dragons representing their best chances of points.
While every coach will tell you not to look into the draw too deeply, it’s impossible not to see that set of fixtures as a problem for Adam O’Brien and the Knights.
They face the six teams that finished above them last year plus an away game against the side most people expect will improve most, the Sharkies.
(Photo by Ashley Feder/Getty Images)
Were they to come away with a 2-6 record, they would be at par for last season – though given the marked improvement on expectations that was shown by the Dragons on Saturday in the Charity Shield, that might end up being a 1-7 record.
If you’re Kalyn Ponga, it’s hardly a convincing argument to stick around and win premierships.
The Knights would do well to either lock him in now – though if you’re Ponga, why would you sign? – or start a long-game discussion about results regression.
That, for those that don’t follow the analytics discussions, is the metric by which one attempts to measure performances and how they relate to results.
Simply put, teams often play well and don’t get results. Think of all the things that can go wrong independent of your own performance: refereeing, injuries, pure bad luck and, yes, the other team being really good. That’s variance in the statistical parlance.
The theory goes that if your performances keep up to a similar standard, eventually the variance swings back the other way. The draw evens out to your advantage, your luck changes and those knocks that you took in defeat become learning experiences that pay off.
If the Knights are 1-7 after eight games and sitting last on the ladder, they could play just as well in the next eight games and find themselves pushing for finals with a 8-8 record – but have Ponga already committed to leaving.
Ponga knocked back the talk in an interview yesterday, instead focussing on his new role within the leadership group at the Knights, though his friendly chat with Felise Kaufusi, the Dolphins recruit, seemed to suggest otherwise.
“It is a privilege and an honour,” Ponga told Fox League. “I just love the club, love the boys, and I want to take them to the big dance”.
“I guess I am co-captain, but I have a bunch of leaders around me, our forward pack.
“I have always wanted to be a leader, it is something that I have been working on for two years and realising now that I am captain it is something that I really like.
“I want that expectation on my shoulders and I am really liking it.”