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NRL legend Matty Johns declares Newcastle Knights fullback Kalyn Ponga the best player in the world, suggesting he is the key to the Knights overcoming the favored Sydney Roosters in the upcoming grand final.
Knights legend Matty Johns has declared Kalyn Ponga is the “best player in the world” and the Newcastle fullback will need to be if last year’s wooden spooners are to pull off the ultimate rags-to-riches story this Sunday.
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The Knights have already beat all the odds to make the grand final and now sit just 80 minutes away from lifting the Provans-Summons trophy. So, how can they do it? How can they climb the mountain again, having put so much energy into Sunday’s win over Penrith, and topple a Roosters team that looks near-unstoppable? Well, Johns has a theory as he and former Roosters premiership-winner Cooper Cronk previewed this week’s decider on ‘Matty and Cronk’.
Johns has been emphatic all finals series that he believed the Knights were a genuine premiership threat and up until the siren sounded at Accor Stadium, few people believed him. Even now that the premiership is in sight, there still isn’t that much pressure on Newcastle because the Roosters remain resounding favourites.
But unsurprisingly, Johns believes Ponga holds the key to a potential Newcastle upset with Cronk agreeing that the Roosters have to “find a way to shut down” and even adding that he would currently take the Knights fullback over James Tedesco.
“It’s crazy to say of Tedesco, a two-time Dally M medallist and two-time grand final winner who has captained his state,” Cronk said. Johns, meanwhile, went as far as to say that Ponga has moved into a “special rare realm” where he has become “more than just a great player”.
“They actually become players that make every single teammate around them better. That’s where Kalyn’s come. This is his difference this season,” Johns added. While Ponga stuffed the stats sheet again on Sunday with 106 run metres and eight tackle busts, it is his growth and evolution as a leader that has been most noticeable this season.
To that point, Cronk said he has noticed a different energy to the Knights captain in pre-game interviews with Fox League.
“He doesn’t have anything to have hovering over the top of him. He is present, he’s answering, he’s comfortable. ”A comfortable and confident Ponga is always going to be dangerous regardless of how the Knights are travelling, but it is the host of other key players around Newcastle’s gun fullback that has also made the difference this year. Johns singled out speedster Fletcher Sharpe as the one “X-Factor” player who could swing the grand final in the Knights’ favour.
“He’s that kind of guy that it would not surprise me if by half time he pinches a couple of tries,” Johns said. “Yesterday he played a more controlled game. He focussed on his kicking and passed the ball. I would urge him in this game to just roam the field, pop up and drive them crazy.
” The numbers tell a similar story with Sharpe running the ball seven times for just 33 metres on Sunday, with Sandon Smith instead being the unlikely hero for the Knights.
“He needs to have 15 runs,” Cronk said. “He needs to have a lot of runs because if he runs 15, he’ll break 10 tackles. I don’t care where he runs it — dummy half, near the line, two passes wide — just run. ”Of course, it was Sharpe’s halves partner who stole the show against the Panthers.
Typically viewed as Newcastle’s organising half, Smith instead did all the running with 154 metres and two tries to bury Penrith and while the former Rooster will be on quite the high on Sunday Cronk warned he will need to go to “another level” this weekend.
“Sandon is a damn good little player. He showed that on the weekend against the Panthers with a couple of big moments,” Cronk said.
“I think the matchup between Sam Walker and Sandon Smith is a big one. The reason being, they are good mates. They are friends and they get along really well. Sandon had a little snipe at Sam in the post-game and said he wants to smash him next week.
They’re good mates, but Sam Walker has the confidence and the swagger to walk into Accor and dominate. Sandon needs a couple of things to go his way.
“There’s a couple of defensive deficiencies in Sandon’s game which I think the Roosters and Sam will take advantage of. Sam is on the left, Sandon’s on the right. There’s a bit of a matchup there that when he kicks a ball, Sandon, he might hesitate. When Sam kicks a ball, he won’t be hesitating.
“So I think that’s a key matchup. I think Sandon needs to go to another level. He doesn’t need to be this guy that scores two tries. If his kicking game is 9.5 out of 10 and he doesn’t miss any tackles, that’s a good thing for the Newcastle Knights.
”The Knights had plenty of success early in Sunday’s game isolating Bradman Best on Blaize Talagi. In fact, Cronk wanted to see Newcastle go to Best more. This time around Best won’t have it all his own way matching up against the dynamic Robert Toia. Instead, it is the Roosters who could have the big positional advantage.
Cronk said if he was playing halfback for the Tricolours on Sunday he would be sending an aerial assault Greg Marzhew’s way.
“If I’m Daly Cherry-Evans or Sam Walker, and I am anywhere on the field on the last play, I put it on that try-line five times Mark will score two or three tries,” Cronk said. “You can easily say of Marzhew and Mark, Mark is more athletic. But the key part to that is Sam and Cherry-Evans put the ball on the try-line or in the in-goal.
“Don’t kick it five metres short. Mark can’t jump up and come down with it. He’s going to have to tap it back. Put it in the in-goal and say, ‘Good luck, Greg Marzhew’.
“He will need a step ladder, but whatever Holbrook’s defensive system comes up with, it’s going to have to be bulletproof because I would be going there a lot of times. ”While the Roosters have a clear height advantage in Nawaqanitawase, Cronk admitted there is one concern he has for his former team on Sunday.
“They are slight compared to Manuleleua and McEwen. They sometimes get caught up on the back rowers because they’re worried about the physicality.
“What I mean by that is when the back rower is running on the inside shoulder, they lean in too much because they’re worried about the big back rower running over the top of them. “That’s a chance to get Kalyn out the back and separate and get that three on two.
” With that in mind, Cronk said that if he was Knights coach Justin Holbrook he would have Newcastle spamming short passes to the back rower for a good 15 to 20 minutes before then finally playing it out the back to Ponga right when they have Cherry-Evans and Walker committed to jamming on the inside. On a whole though, Cronk said he was confident the Roosters’ relentless defensive system would hold up and put them in a strong position to frustrate the Knights into victory.
Funnily enough, Cronk came to that opinion watching the Roosters in their qualifying final loss to the Panthers earlier this month. The Roosters may not have come out on top on the scoreboard but their body language left a lasting impression according to Cronk.
“Every collision, they were pushing Penrith back. Every athletic movement that Rob Toia and Mark Nawaqanitawase were doing, they had something,” he said.
“Then again against the Sharks, the Sharks just couldn’t swim with them once they got to the deep end. ” The Roosters last won a premiership in 2019 and Cronk said he can notice one striking similarity to the sides that have previously lifted the Provan-Summons trophy under Robinson.
“One person moves, everyone is in sync, and they just keep operating left and right. “Newcastle’s defence is crazy effort chaos. They are just moving and working. Whereas the Roosters it’s just this system that is just moving.
There is a metre gap that stays a metre across the line.
“On the other side of that, their individual athleticism complements one another, whether it’s Nafahu Whyte, the skill and guile of Victor Radley, put Rob Toia on the right side and put Sam Walker just with this ability to walk into any coliseum and believe that he can be the best player. ”“I think they’re built completely different to the Newcastle Knights,” Cronk said of the Roosters.
“Their game is in tip-top shape, individually brilliant, defensively really strong. I feel like Sam Walker is going to walk away the Clive Churchill medal.
“I love the fairy tale, but when you look at the actual numbers and their team and the way it looks out, I think the Roosters are built differently and I think they win and Sam Walker’s the star. ” Johns, meanwhile, is picking Ponga to cap off a stellar finals series by claiming the Clive Churchill medal and believes the Knights need to throw caution to the wind in the decider.
“How do they win? I go back to the way they beat the Warriors over there was ball movement all the time,” Johns said.
“We spoke about it last week against the Warriors with young Cody Hopwood. When he went down, he made those three tackles in a row. What allowed him to do that is the fact that their yardage game is not taxing on their middle men.
“If you’re going beat the Roosters, your middle men have got to stand up to the challenge. They’re not going to have to do too much work coming out of yardage.
“That shifting the football, controlled movement of the football, make metres, look to work to the other side. The Knights have been able to execute that style of football in the last two weeks in conditions that don’t suit that type of football.
“That’s the type of football that I think can beat the Roosters, and it’s the type of football they’ve just about perfected. ”
NRL Grand Final Newcastle Knights Sydney Roosters Kalyn Ponga Matty Johns
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