{"id":1701,"date":"2025-07-18T00:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T00:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/1701\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T00:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T00:02:09","slug":"andrew-johns-makes-sad-admission-about-newcastle-knights-as-kalyn-ponga-exit-talk-ramps-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/1701\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Johns makes sad admission about Newcastle Knights as Kalyn Ponga exit talk ramps up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newcastle premiership winner Andrew Johns<\/a> says he has no qualms over Kalyn Ponga<\/a> leaving the club, with the club champion admitting the superstar fullback’s “not going to win a comp” with the Knights.<\/p>\n

Along with Roger Tuivasa-Sheck<\/a>, Ponga is reportedly a target for rebel Saudi Arabian-backed rugby union competition R360 and has signed with a New Zealand-based rugby union agent.<\/p>\n

The fullback has not commented on the reports and it’s said he’ll meet with the club in the coming days, with fears he’s played his last match for Newcastle.<\/p>\n

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Johns, who won premierships with Newcastle in 1997 and 2001, said it would be unfair for the club to stop Ponga from leaving.<\/p>\n

\"NEWCASTLE,<\/p>\n

Kalyn\u00a0Ponga may have played his last match for the Knights.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“He is that good, he probably deserves to be on the world stage,” Johns said on Wide World of Sports’ Freddy and the Eighth.<\/a><\/p>\n

“He’s not going to win a comp at Newcastle. He plays for Queensland and he hasn’t played for Australia \u2013 does he see himself as a Kiwi?<\/p>\n

“I imagine the carrot is to play for the All Blacks.”<\/p>\n

Ponga has been linked with rugby for much of his career but the outside noise has grown louder since he was injured late last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While ARL Commission boss Peter V’landys said in 2023 the NRL<\/a> was going to try and poach rugby players after Joseph Suaalii’s departure from the game, it appears the code is now under pressure to hold on to its players due to the establishment of the new R360 competition.<\/p>\n

With Ponga reportedly on the way out, the Knights could be headed for a full clean-out with claims Newcastle is preparing to part ways with coach Adam O’Brien at season’s end<\/a>, and are willing to pay him out.<\/p>\n

That will no doubt put the Knights in another rebuilding phase, nearly 25 years since their last premiership in 2001 and just months after signing Dylan Brown to a 10-year contract worth a reported $13 million.<\/p>\n

Yet Johns holds no hard feelings against Ponga.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2025 NRL premiership live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I give him a big thank you for coming to the club and if he wants to move on, I say thank you for what you have done for the club,” Johns told Freddie and the Eighth.<\/p>\n

“He has carried the club. He signed after the three wooden spoons in a row and that year (2017) the Cowboys got to a grand final.<\/p>\n

“Look, he got signed for big money but struggling clubs have to pay overs for a marquee player. He has attracted players to the club, he has attracted sponsors, I would imagine his social media reach would be huge.<\/p>\n

“So I would say thank you to Kalyn for what you have delivered to the club. Thank you very much. If you want to move on, so be it.<\/p>\n

“No animosity whatsoever.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newcastle premiership winner Andrew Johns says he has no qualms over Kalyn Ponga leaving the club, with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-1701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}