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Sometimes a change is as good as a holiday and a mid-season break has done the trick for Newcastle.
The Knights players were allowed to take flight during their bye round, a decision heavily criticised in some quarters on the back of their heavy defeat to Parramatta, but coach Adam O’Brien was vindicated on Sunday as they surged home to a 46-26 triumph over the Titans.
Newcastle skipper Kalyn Ponga’s class shone through on a sunny afternoon at McDonald Jones Stadium as he set up the go-ahead try and then scored a superb solo try from long range as the home side swamped the Gold Coast.
The win lifts Newcastle to just one point outside the top eight while the Titans missed an opportunity to rise to a share of third spot, just one win behind ladder leaders South Sydney.
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He’s still coming to terms with the switch to five-eighth but in the big moments, Ponga stands tall.
When the match was in the balance against the Titans, he delivered for his team.
Firstly, he skipped around opposing playmaker Tanah Boyd and drew the fullback to put Bradman Best over in the corner to put Newcastle up 22-18.
A few minutes later, Ponga did it all himself, splitting the defence from inside his own half and this time fooling the Gold Coast No.1, Jayden Campbell, for a 10-point advantage.
Earlier, he had set up a crucial try on the stroke of half-time, serving up a perfectly placed grubber for Tyson Frizell.
While some of his teammates enjoyed some rest and relaxation during the bye week, Ponga stayed put to work on his fitness.
He said it was important for the players who had been a part of the opening nine rounds to have a break but because he missed six weeks due to a concussion, he “focused on my fitness and my defence”.
“Everything stems off that. Not only personally but as a team as well,” he said.
Ponga added he was thrilled to delight the home fans after “the last seven or eight months, it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses” but wanted to get back to the consistent excellence he was delivering a couple of years ago.
“I’m still learning the position of six. I know this is going to be a learning process. Today I just focused on playing my game, what makes me tick. Where I like to be, that sort of thing.”
Dominic Young catches a kick on his way to score. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
O’Brien has not been happy with some of the criticism that has been thrown up about Ponga’s positional switch from fullback in 2023.
“I thought when he hit the go button for us in the second half he showed he’s elite, as I said at the start of this. It’s way too premature for people to comment given the sample size this year,” O’Brien said. “He knows he’s got to work hard again next week and replicate it.”
Maroons coach Billy Slater has been non-committal about who will line up at fullback when he begins their defence of the Origin shield at Adelaide on May 31.
Based on his Round 11 form and his superb efforts for Queensland last year, Ponga now seems all but certain to hold off the challenges of Brisbane’s Reece Walsh and Dolphins speedster Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow.
“It’s a prestigious honour to represent Queensland,” Ponga said. “I can’t worry about Queensland or selections or anything like that. I’ve got to worry about my performances (for Newcastle).”
Canterbury general manager Phil Gould led the criticism of the Knights for allowing the players to go on holidays during their bye, which coincided with Magic Round.
O’Brien is smart enough to know he won’t be getting an apology from Gould but the coach should feel vindicated after the Knights put in their best performance of what has been an up-and-down season.
“It was so blown out of proportion. It was one player who went to Bali. It’s no one’s business really. There’s a lot of commentary, I get that,” he said before adding that they opened themselves up for criticism by the way they played in the loss to Parra.
Gold Coast were the slightly better team in the first half which finished all square at 12-12 after Dominic Young opened the scoring with a high leap, the Titans went in front via David Fifita and Phil Sami before Frizell enhanced his hopes of a NSW Origin recall by sprinting onto Ponga’s grubber just before the break.
Even when Campbell touched down first in the second half, the Titans never put their stamp on proceedings and a Greg Marzhew try cut the gap to two for the Knights before Ponga’s double strike of brilliance swung the momentum for good.
Dane Gagai and Best helped keep the visitors at bay in the final quarter despite a second Fifita try.
Rookie winger Alofiana Khan-Pereira added a consolation try in the closing stages but that was cancelled out by Young’s length-of-the-field intercept on the stroke of full-time.
After coughing up a premiership record 26-point lead to the Dolphins last month, the Titans held strong in a 26-10 win over Manly and then survived a few anxious moments late against Parramatta before sealing a 26-24 Magic Round win last weekend.
But again on Sunday, with the game there for the taking, they faded in the second stanza, going from an 18-12 advantage to a 20-point defeat.
“We just made too many errors,” Titans coach Justin Holbrook said. “We’ve had a couple of good wins and we needed to stand up and deliver again today and we just weren’t good enough. We conceded some soft tries and got what we deserved in the end.”
Gold Coast captain Tino Fa’asuamaleaui was not happy with “our urgency and our defence” in the second half.
Fa’asuamaleaui was on the receiving end of a cannonball tackle from Frizell in the first half but after being treated for a leg injury, he returned in the second half.
Frizell, who has surged back into Blues contention, should only face a fine at the most for the incident.
Fifita did his chances of a Maroons recall no harm with two tries but the Titans will not become genuine finals contenders until they eradicate their worrying trend of going missing when the heat is on.