In a struggling team, Brown managed five tries and 11 try assists before being moved aside, as coach Jason Ryles looked to the future. In the last eight games of the season, Brown only had one match in the halves \u2013 ironically against Newcastle. In that period he was used at hooker, had three matches in the centres and spent the rest of the time in reserve grade.<\/p>\n
It was an unusual scenario for a player who had helped guide the Eels to a grand final in 2022, which at the time was the culmination of four straight playoff campaigns for the famed club. <\/p>\n
Brown, who accumulated 142 games for the Eels across seven seasons, also had to endure consistent criticism of the Newcastle deal \u2013 which only seemed to get louder as Parramatta\u2019s campaign worsened \u2013 from league luminaries and media pundits. <\/p>\n
However, speaking to the Herald ahead of tomorrow\u2019s test against Samoa, the 25-year-old is in a good space.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t too bad,\u201d says Brown when asked about the fallout from his Knights mega move. \u201cEveryone inside of the club was pretty good. There might have been things said, or spoken about outside of our club that may have looked as if there was dramas there, but it was all pretty good. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverything was clear from [Jason Ryles] about [why] I wasn\u2019t playing and it was obviously because I wasn\u2019t part of the future and that\u2019s what he needed to focus on. I played all over the park, learned a few new things and I had a bit of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also has a new appreciation for those wider out in the backline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI earned a lot of respect for centres,\u201d Brown said with a smile. \u201cIt\u2019s not as easy as I thought, nowhere near as easy as I thought, probably 10 times harder than playing half in terms of strength and the things they have got to do off the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dylan Brown. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Brown is feeling good physically \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve had a little holiday and [am] ready to go again\u201d \u2013 which is a positive sign for the Kiwis, given his importance. <\/p>\n
Across his short international career, Brown has been at the forefront of New Zealand\u2019s best moments. He starred on debut against Tonga in 2022 \u2013 a convincing 26-6 win \u2013 then backed that up at the subsequent World Cup, one of the better performers in the narrow semifinal defeat to the Kangaroos.<\/p>\n
Then came the 2023 Pacific Championships campaign, with the thumping win over Samoa at Eden Park, followed by the epic 30-0 triumph over Australia in the final in Hamilton. All of those were with Jahrome Hughes beside him<\/a>, before both halves missed last year\u2019s Pacific Championships campaign, which featured losses to the Kangaroos and Tonga around a sole victory over Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n With the luckless Hughes sidelined again, Brown will be beside veteran Foran, who is playing his final campaign after making his international debut way back in 2009.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s been around for a long time and there\u2019s a reason why,\u201d said Brown. \u201cHe\u2019s achieved some great things and he\u2019s one of the best. I\u2019m honoured to play alongside him; he\u2019s the old bull and I\u2019m always learning so it\u2019s good to have him around.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Brown is expected to take on the main playmaker role at the Knights, he is happy to be secondary on this occasion.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone knows \u2018Foz\u2019 is the general, that\u2019s his role and I\u2019m sticking to the footy that I usually play, so I\u2019ll be the six and he is the seven,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n With his running game, kicking skills and solid defence, Brown will be key to the Kiwis\u2019 spine and overall gameplan. The Kiwis are slight favourites, given their history and greater experience, but it won\u2019t be easy against a formidable Samoa team who will have massive crowd support.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re a good side,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThey\u2019ve got a lot of premiership winning players in their team and outstanding players across the park. [But] we have been together for a while now and we get a lot of confidence from each other. So it\u2019s going to be a great contest.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Burgess<\/a> has been a Sports Journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups, and America\u2019s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a struggling team, Brown managed five tries and 11 try assists before being moved aside, as coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[9490,7641,64,63,8421,598,135219,135218,135217,16488,71156,3389,15499,761,762,158,321,135220,33483,5993,161,85,231],"class_list":["post-222464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-after","tag-arena","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-back","tag-brown","tag-definite","tag-difficult","tag-dylan","tag-eyes","tag-half","tag-international","tag-kiwis","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-point","tag-prove","tag-redemption","tag-samoa","tag-season","tag-sports","tag-test"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222464","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=222464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}