Newcastle great claims Kalyn Ponga is at FAULT for ‘one or two’ tries the Knights concede each week

Newcastle great Robbie O’Davis has slammed Knights captain Kalyn Ponga for being responsible for his team conceding so many tries.

The Knights have the worst point differential in the entire NRL and only three more teams have conceded more points than the 362 Newcastle have allowed so far.

The Knights’ 20-18 defeat to the Raiders on Sunday was their third loss in the last four outings and left them marooned in 12th place with a 4-10 record for the season.

O’Davis, who won two NRL Grand Finals with Newcastle in 1997 and 2001, pointed to Ponga as one of the reason for Newcastle’s defensive brittleness after the star fullback was caught out of position for Hudson Young’s late match-winning try.

‘Not that i bloody know anything, but will some one please tell our fullback to not defend on the front line,’ the former Queensland and Kangaroos star wrote on Facebook. 

‘We give away 1-2 tries a week because the fullback is up in the defensive line, not at the back. If they kick it through, he supposed to be there […] Am I the only one that sees this every week.’

Former Knights star Robbie O’Davis called out Ponga’s poor defensive positioning

O’Davis spent his entire NRL career with Newcastle winning two Grand Finals in 1997 and 2002

Worryingly for Newcastle, their defensive frailties are exacerbated by a sterile attack. The Knights’ three tries against the Raiders brought their season tally to 33, the worst in the NRL.

Ponga, who in April signed a five-year deal to remain with the club until 2027, battled a stomach illness to play on Sunday.

The Newcastle skipper looked on the verge of throwing up during the game and coach Adam O’Brien revealed the extent of the issue after the game. 

Ponga suffered with a stomach bug ahead of the game against Canberra 

But the Queensland fullback recovered enough to be in the thick of the action on Sunday

‘He couldn’t eat, he wasn’t in a good way. I could tell it was going to be a real ask for him. But Kalyn being Kalyn said “I need to be out there”,’ he told Fox League.

‘He hasn’t eaten for a few days. There’s not much of him as it is. He doesn’t get a lot of wraps for his toughness, Kalyn. There’s people who want to get stuck into him a bit.

‘But I know, and we know what we’ve got with him. We wouldn’t swap him for anyone.’

Despite the illness, Ponga set up two tries and finished the game with 120 run metres, a linebreak, a linebreak assist and converted all three of Newcastle’s tries as the Knights came back from 14-0 down to temporarily lead by four points.