{"id":512467,"date":"2026-03-01T20:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512467\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T20:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:30:11","slug":"matt-burton-pours-fuel-on-nfl-talk-about-bulldogs-win-over-dragons-in-las-vegas-dylan-brown-fletcher-sharpe-sandon-smith-take-pressure-of-kalyn-ponga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512467\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Burton pours fuel on NFL talk about Bulldogs’ win over Dragons in Las Vegas; Dylan Brown, Fletcher Sharpe, Sandon Smith take pressure of Kalyn Ponga"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Burton<\/a> threw petrol on the flame of a possible move to the NFL<\/a> after his first game on American soil in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Burton’s booming kicking game – which he used to good effect in the Bulldogs’ nail-biting golden point win<\/a> over the luckless Dragons – already had American scouts interested in his services.<\/p>\n

And Burton admitted after the game that a potential switch to American football was something he had been thinking about.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Kerr scores as Matildas open Asian Cup with a win<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Dogs skipper slots golden point field goal to sink Dragons<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: May announces retirement amid personal struggles<\/a><\/p>\n

“If anything popped up, I would look at it,” Burton said after his team’s narrow win.<\/p>\n

“I feel I could do it (play in the NFL).<\/p>\n

“It’s more technical than league and I would have to study it, but I feel I could have a crack at it.”<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

Matt Burton and Jacob Preston embrace during the Bulldogs’ win in Las Vegas.\u00a0NRL Imagery<\/p>\n

Knights no longer a one-man band<\/p>\n

One of Justin Holbrook’s main reasons for bringing new halves Dylan Brown and Sandon Smith to the Knights was to take the heat off marquee man Kalyn Ponga.<\/p>\n

And it worked a treat in the team’s outing on the big stage in Vegas as the Knights claimed their first victory in an NRL game in 253 long days<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Every member of the new-look spine – Brown, Smith and Fletcher Sharpe (until he was injured) – had their moments in attack.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2026 NRL season live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But more importantly, the Knights are no longer a one-man band and rival teams will have to do more than shut down Ponga to come up with wins.<\/p>\n

And Ponga appreciated having the pressure off his shoulders, picking his times to make an impact as he carved up the Cowboys defence with his incisive running.<\/p>\n

“We wanted Kalyn to feel like he didn’t need to have a huge impact,” Holbrook confirmed afterwards.<\/p>\n

“He trained on his own (because of injury) for most of the summer and to play 80 minutes the way he did was outstanding.”<\/p>\n

NRL old boys light up Vegas<\/p>\n

Three old NRL boys stole the show as Leeds humbled World Club champions Hull KR 58-6 in the curtain-raiser in Vegas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Rhinos made a mockery of Hull’s new title as champions of the league universe after their defeat of the Broncos with an upset win.<\/p>\n

And leading the way were former Eels favourite Maika Sivo and ex-Broncos and Storm halfback Brodie Croft, who bagged six tries between them.<\/p>\n

Sivo, in only his second game for Leeds after missing all of 2025 with a knee reconstruction, showed the form that made him a crowd favourite at Parramatta Stadium for so many years with a scintillating display, powering over for try after try.<\/p>\n

And Croft, playing at five-eighth, looked better than many current NRL playmakers with two tries and a hand in several others.<\/p>\n

The third former NRL mainstay, ex-Eels coach Brad Arthur, pushed his claims for a return to Oz by masterminding Leeds’ stunning win.<\/p>\n

The underdogs were always a step ahead of the world champions and Arthur’s quick-out-of-the-blocks game plan was instrumental in that.<\/p>\n

Payten’s blunt admission<\/p>\n

Conceding the first two tries in each half cost the Cowboys dearly against the Knights – and it’s a habit they have to get out of quickly if they want to win games in 2026.<\/p>\n

“The start of both halves was very poor,” coach Todd Payten conceded.<\/p>\n

“We need to be better.”<\/p>\n

The Cowboys fought back both times but in the end it proved too little, too late in a poor start to the season.<\/p>\n

Any chance the Cowboys had evaporated late in the game when winger Braidon Burns was sin-binned for a high shot on Ponga.<\/p>\n

But Payten was fuming that Knights veteran Tyson Frizell wasn’t binned for an alleged hip-drop tackle that put Thomas Mikaele out of the game in the first half – and out for six weeks with a knee injury.<\/p>\n

“It should have been a sin-bin, for sure,” Payten said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Burton threw petrol on the flame of a possible move to the NFL after his first game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-512467","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\/512467","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=512467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}