KNIGHTS coach Adam O'Brien is confident skipper Kalyn Ponga will take his place in Sunday's clash with Canterbury at McDonald Jones Stadium and may not even need painkilling injections to get through the game.
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Ponga suffered a hip-pointer injury in last week's 22-20 loss to the Roosters and revealed in a post-match interview he received "a few needles" at half-time before he returned to the field.
There was concern he may need at least a week on the sidelines, but O'Brien said the dynamic fullback had been able to join in two ball-work sessions with his teammates this week and was even practising his goalkicking.
"He's actually done way more than I expected," O'Brien said on Friday.
O'Brien said he was "not too sure" if Ponga would be needled up before running out against the Bulldogs.
"I'd imagine so, but he hasn't had any during the week and he's trained well, and we've had contact as well," he said.
"He's a pretty tough bugger. He doesn't give me too much during the week on how he's feeling.
"But just looking at his training, he's been tackled by the group without any pain management.
"So I'm not completely sure. That'd be more for the medicos."
O'Brien said there would be no real benefit from resting Ponga for a week to recover from his injury.
"With the type of injury, it's just a pain-management thing," he said.
"I know that's easy for me to say. I'm not the one that's putting up with it.
"But it's not an injury that by playing with it, we can do any damage to him.
"It's a pain-threshold thing.
"I watched him with his shoulder last year, and this guy is pretty good at managing pain.
"And he's just done 30 minutes' goalkicking, swinging his hip, so he'll be right."
O'Brien is expecting to face a vastly more competitive Canterbury team than last season, when the Knights slaughtered them 66-0 and 42-6.
On paper, Newcastle appear to have an edge in experience up front and O'Brien wants his forwards to dominate.
"It's really important that they tackle well, those guys, and lay a platform," he said. "But I think it'll be a really good contest."
