{"id":195866,"date":"2025-12-22T05:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T05:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/195866\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T05:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T05:07:09","slug":"off-season-central-knights-hybrid-spine-dylan-brown-sandon-smith-fletcher-sharpe-kalyn-ponga-injury-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/195866\/","title":{"rendered":"Off-season Central, Knights hybrid spine, Dylan Brown, Sandon Smith, Fletcher Sharpe, Kalyn Ponga injury update"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Newcastle Knights are reportedly weighing up a hybrid spine approach that will see players interchange positions, as the club provided an update on Kalyn Ponga. <\/p>\n

The Knights have brought in Dylan Brown and Sandon Smith to compete for spots in a spine that already features Ponga, Fletcher Sharpe and Phoenix Crossland, but there remains doubts about where every player fits in. <\/p>\n

Knights Head of Football Chris James told SEN radio<\/a> that the players are training in multiple positions in the pre-season under new coach Justin Holbrook, which will allow the club to be flexible with their selections and during games. <\/p>\n

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\u201cEveryone keeps asking the question, but Justin\u2019s (Holbrook) playing them in all different positions, he\u2019s trialling them on different sides of the field and everybody\u2019s really caught up with what number they\u2019re going to wear,\u201d James told SEN 1170 Breakfast<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019ll see a style of footy where they\u2019ll just play in different positions in different parts of the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory will tell you injuries and different things go on throughout the year where you need 28 players to play for you in an NRL season, so we\u2019re just fortunate now that we\u2019ve got depth in our halves, we\u2019ve got depth in our spine, and that\u2019s a real difference here than what we\u2019ve had over the last previous years.\u201d <\/p>\n

James has been impressed by Brown\u2019s performance at training so far, but warned the Knights forwards will need to set the platform for their spine to click. <\/p>\n

\u201c(Dylan Brown\u2019s) great with the ball, he\u2019ll straighten attacks, but he played behind a great New Zealand pack as well (in the Pacific Championships),\u201d James said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what the message at training for us has been. Our middles and our forwards, they\u2019ve got a responsibility to make sure that the likes of Dyl (Brown), Sandon (Smith), Fletcher Sharpe and Kalyn are playing on the back of the pack going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s been a real focus for us as well.<\/p>\n

\u201c(I\u2019m) so happy for Dyl. He\u2019s come up here; he\u2019s had a new baby. I think we\u2019ll definitely see the best of Dylan Brown here in Newcastle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dylan Brown has been training in multiple positions.Source: The Daily Telegraph<\/p>\n

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There were also fears that Ponga\u2019s return from a Lisfranc injury that required surgery had been delayed amid reports he was still required to wear a moon boot at times. <\/p>\n

However, James explained that the club was taking a cautious approach with Ponga\u2019s second Lisfranc injury to ensure not only that he will be ready for Round 1 in Las Vegas, but that he won\u2019t suffer a reoccurrence of the injury. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to take a conservative approach with Kalyn,\u201d James said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lisfranc\u2019s a really serious injury. It\u2019s the ACL of the foot and this is now his second one.<\/p>\n

The Knights are being cautious with Kalyn Ponga\u2019s return from a Lisfranc injury.Source: Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cI think previously we\u2019ve had to rush Kalyn back from injuries because of how important he\u2019s been to this footy team, and we\u2019ve got a bit of time on our side now during this off-season where we can actually make sure that we go through the rehab process really slowly and get his foot ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been doing a lot of work out of the boot and then he gets back into the boot to sort of deload it for a period of time, so we just wanted to make sure that we\u2019re really conservative, so that in round one he\u2019s ready to go.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The plan is) ready for Vegas\u2026 get him fit and firing for Vegas which is really exciting for our footy club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharks confident to break prelim curse | 01:11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Newcastle Knights are reportedly weighing up a hybrid spine approach that will see players interchange positions, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[12587,85,2652,121183,32685,83315,121180,121188,121181,2647,115884,121187,121178,121184,62753,121190,13891,121182,121179,13893,2648,111,2653,75636,139,64,13902,69,2659,91135,121186,121185,75648,121189,213,33838,13883],"class_list":{"0":"post-195866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","11":"tag-bears-ramp","12":"tag-daniel-atkinson","13":"tag-fletcher-sharpe","14":"tag-football-chris-james","15":"tag-footy-club","16":"tag-footy-team","17":"tag-fox-league","18":"tag-halves-pairing","19":"tag-hybrid-spine","20":"tag-hybrid-spine-approach","21":"tag-injury-update","22":"tag-justin-holbrook","23":"tag-knights-hybrid-spine","24":"tag-las-vegas","25":"tag-moon-boot","26":"tag-multiple-positions","27":"tag-nevada","28":"tag-new-south-wales","29":"tag-new-zealand","30":"tag-newcastle","31":"tag-newcastle-knights","32":"tag-newzealand","33":"tag-north-america","34":"tag-northern-america","35":"tag-nz","36":"tag-oceania","37":"tag-off-season-central","38":"tag-pre-season-efforts-ramp","39":"tag-preliminary-finals-curse","40":"tag-sandon-smith","41":"tag-sharks-confident","42":"tag-sports","43":"tag-state-of-play","44":"tag-united-states-of-america"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}