Newcastle coach Nathan Brown has dismissed criticism of Kalyn Ponga’s performance at five-eighth in the All Stars game in Melbourne on Friday night as “meaningless”, claiming it will have zero impact on how he plays for the Knights this season.
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In just his second game as a starting five-eighth since breaking into the NRL, Ponga had some good touches but came up with a number of errors and wrong options as his New Zealand Maori side was over-run by the Indigenous All Stars.
Predictably, given his high standards, the 20-year-old Knights star, who is making the switch from fullback this season, copped criticism for the way he played by some media commentators and on social media sites.
But Brown said he doesn’t take any notice of these types of games from a performance perspective because players are thrown together with very little time to gel.
“One of the great things about the concept is not necessarily the game itself, it’s the cultural awareness they all get out of it,” Brown said.
“In Kalyn’s case, it was his dad’s side of the family and it was all about learning more about his Maori culture.
“I don’t think any coach is going to be too worried about how a certain player played in that game.
“As for any criticism of KP [Ponga], it won’t worry him. He doesn’t listen to anyone when they tell him how good he is so I don’t think he is going to listen to them when they tell him he’s bad.”
Brown indicated he will be using Ponga totally differently to how he was used in Melbourne.
“For me, who people play with and the styles they play is more important and we’ll certainly be using KP a fair bit different to the way he played there,” he said.
“Obviously, he is going to be alongside Mitchell [Pearce] for us and in familiar surroundings with combinations he is use to.
“As it was, Stacey [Jones, Maoris coach] did what we asked him to do and only played him for a short period because of his interrupted pre-season after surgery.
“So he wasn’t out there long enough to get any real flow of the game.”
Ponga admitted he was guilty of getting away from his usual structures.
“I was pushing passes a little bit and just under pressure, I probably didn’t execute the way I wanted to,” he told NRL.com.
“First game for 2019, I’m not too worried. I’ll definitely watch that game back, hopefully with Browny and talk about things.”
* Macquarie was knocked out of the NSW Challenge Cup after going down 32-16 to Wyong in round one on Saturday.