Not only did the Warriors have a new coach in Andrew Webster, but they were virtually unrecognizable from last year’s outfit when they trotted out in front of a raucous Wellington crowd for their first stint of the 2023 season. Only two players were present from their last game of 2022, while Marata Niukore, Dylan Walker, Mitch Barnett, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Te Maire Martin and Jackson Ford were all fresh in the New Zealand jersey, with Brayden Wiliame making his first NRL appearance since Round 18 2021 after a sojourn in French rugby.

On the other side of the Steeden, Kalyn Ponga was back to five-eighth in his first NRL match since Round 3 2019, after only forty minutes in the halves during the Pre-Season Challenge, making way for Lachie Miller to don the Newcastle jersey for the first time at fullback. Dane Gagai was out with a hamstring injury, and replaced by Enari Tuala, himself recovered from a pectoral injury, while Adam Elliott and Jack Hetherington were back on the bench following left ankle and shoulder complaints respectively, and ready to rumble from the forward pack.

Ponga’s boot, hands and timing meant that Newcastle scored on the very first set and he was just as strong at the start of the second stanza, so it was agonising to see him leave the park at the demand of the independent doctor twelve minutes from the end, right when he looked set to produce some more magic from the halves. It was one of the reasons why the Knights suffered their first Round 1 defeat in six seasons, along with the loss of Tyson Frizell twelve minutes in to a failed HIA. Both players would end up being replaced by Elliott off the bench.

Dallin Watene Zelezniak had been stellar against the Storm in the Christchurch try, but ended up being a late absence here for a calf tear, making way for Edward Kosi, who made the most of his opportunity by scoring the Warriors’ first try of the season. While Shaun Johnson was pretty reliable with the boot, Wayde Egan and CNK were probably the two New Zealanders who made the biggest impact on the match, personifying between them the relentless courage of a Warriors outfit who would barnstorm up the ladder as this season proceeded.

Charnze might have missed the first high ball, and in doing so paved the way for Ponga to assist Lachlan Fitzgibbon, but he had a bumper second half, crossing untouched off a Wiliame linebreak at the 51^st minute, before holding up Ponga at the 67^th minute, in the single greatest defensive play of the game. Similarly, Egan assisted Bunty Afoa beneath the crossbar in the first stanza, tried to go it himself beside the left padding at the 57^th minute and got Phoenix Crossland sent to the bin, and was lifted to the brink of the horizontal by Miller a beat later.

Egan banged so hard onto his back that he had to leave the park for a spell, but his time on the sidelines only inspired him to crash over out of dummy half seven minutes out from the final siren – a glorious conclusion to the Warriors’ start to the year. By the time Johnson was lining up the tee for the final conversion, which he nabbed, Ponga was back from the tunnel and sitting on the bench, a glum sight for the Newcastle faithful who had made their way to Wellington to experience the ups, downs and fascinating minutiae of this epic season opener.

Johnson started these minutiae by booting the kickoff in front of a exuberant home crowd, and Daniel Saifiti took the first carry to the ten, where he was swarmed by a pack of New Zealand defenders. Frizell muscled his way over the twenty on the right side of the park, Dom Young took the third hit-up, Jacob Saifiti followed with more metres, and Jayden Brailey delivered a deft short side dummy run to set up Miller for his first touch of the footy in Newcastle colours, before Ponga put boot to ball midway down the Sky grass.

With CNK fumbling it, and Jackson Hastings recovering it, the Knights got a full set in the opposition thirty, in what became a stunning tribute to Ponga’s shift to the five-eighth jersey. Barnett was called offside as they approached the twenty, and Kalyn responded with his first game management in the halves, at least as far as passing was concerned, dummying into the red zone and laying a platform for Tohu Harris to bring it five metres out. Frizell now took another carry, and was met on the right by a resurgent Charnze.

All the pieces were in place for Ponga to showcase his footy genius. Receiving a good ball from Kurt Mann, he held onto it long enough to engage Barnett, before flicking a short one on for Fitzgibbon to slide through a Johnson ankle tap and trample through Adam Pompey to mark his 99^th game. In their first set, Ponga had secured position with the kick, ushered his men into the red zone, and provided the assist, so the home crowd were pretty quiet when Hastings, who had been kicking at 63% for Wests Tigers last year, slotted it through the posts.

Yet while the Warriors might have only got their first touch of the Steeden four and a half minutes in, with a sharp Marcelo Montoya return at the end of a restart that saw Jacko boot it just shy of halfway, they made up for it with one of the most dramatic accumulations of position all night. Fitzgibbon and Jacob Saifiti both conceded six again, and Hastings got done for crowding, a fortunate call for Ford, since the replay showed he had dropped the ball cold while trying to replay it, forcing the Knights into their first real defensive challenge.

The two Jacksons came together again on the left a few plays later, thanks to some nice vision from Johnson, who fed a short ball out to Ford, for what would have been a clear break if Hastings hadn’t lunged in low to stop him. Ponga, too, delivered a beautiful hit on Johnson to rattle the footy free a moment later, but he was called offside in the process, giving the Warriors their first burst of close-range energy, as Addin Fonua-Blake charged to the cusp of the crossbar, and Tohu Harris took a short ball from Egan to hit the very same spot.

In both cases, Newcastle stayed strong, and so the Warriors headed out to the right, where only just failed to make it through, before they head back in for a Barnett steadier. Still high on his first footy flow of the year, Ponga now came up with another individual tackle, and this one was a beauty, a hard hit on Niukore that was the last straw in New Zealand’s attack. The Knights got the ball back in their own ten, and had to deliver real horsepower on this set to compensate for all the position the hosts had managed to rack up.

While the big boppers had the Steeden at the forty by tackle three, there wasn’t much further gain before Jacko put boot to ball, and without much of a chase, CNK sailed through the air, took it on the fly, and was at his own thirty when he banged into Best and Fitzgibbon. Once again, though, the Warriors got a fresh set, this time thanks to a Brailey offside, and settled into one of their silkiest sweeps yet, as a Harris offload set up a lovely Johnson-Martin combo out on the left edge. Surely, the time had come for Shaun to stand up to Ponga as alpha half.

Johnson started by heading right on his next carry, and then sneaking the Steeden back inside for Fonua-Blake, as a left sweep blossomed a beat later. Yet Martin couldn’t quite link up with Williame, who lost it over the sideline, bringing the Warriors to 78% completion, with the Knights sitting pretty on 100%. The visitors won the next penalty too, when a Miller dart from dummy half caught Barnett offside, and Hastings responded with a beautiful pivot in play, showing it right but shifting it left for Ponga to soar a pitch-perfect wide ball out to Best.

This prompted some committed defence from Kosi, who surged off the wing and straight into the chest of Best, forcing the Knights’ first error of the game. Three plays later, Martin sent a no-looker across to CNK, who offloaded as Frizell slammed head-first into his hip, and then left the park a beat later for the HIA that would keep him benched for the remainder of the game. Elliott had a bigger chunk of the action than usual now, but the Warriors had also lost rhythm with the delay in play, not offering much of a chase beneath Johnson’s bomb.

Hymel Hunt took his first carry early in the following set, and Young notched up some strong post-contacts. Receiving the footy at the twenty, he dragged Walker, Martin, Ford and Fonua-Blake to the thirty, where he momentarily seemed to lose possession under the accumulated weight of these defenders, only to receive a penalty for a Martin strip with Ford still in the tackle. Daniel Saifiti added a few more metres after contact to break the forty, and Hastings booted the best-weighted ball of the game so far on play three, landing it right on the tryline.

From there, it careened in goal, where Kosi was forced to bang it dead with Jacko right on his heels. Johnson might have sent the dropout to thirty-five metres from the Newcastle line, but Daniel Saifiti soon had it back on the third, getting Jacob to the brink of the red zone, where he lost in the face of a massive hit from Barnett, with Fonua-Blake on top. This was a critical turning-point for a New Zealand outfit sitting at 214-285 run metres, since even if they didn’t get points down, they had concisely and clinically contained the next major Newcastle surge.

They were also started to accelerate up the middle, as a rapid-play-the-ball from Niukore opened up a corridor of space that allowed Johnson to almost put CNK through the line, before Ponga and Brailey came in low for a hefty tackle that both lifted Charnze clean off the turf and slowed down the remainder of the set in its wake. Johnson tried to compensate with the kick, but ended up striking it too hard, so all Young had to do was wait for it to bounce over the backline, without a New Zealand chaser in sight, to secure his men the extra tackle.

Elliott now made his presence felt with a gutsy charge two plays in, laying a platform for Ponga to elasticize up the short side and shoot a classy ball out to Fitzgibbon, who required three Warriors to hold him up. Ponga then set up eight post-contacts for Mann up the right, and Brailey sent it through Hastings for Tuala to hit the red zone, which is where Jacko booted it as well. It had been a confident Newcastle set, but not an especially spectacular one, so the rhythm was still there for the Warriors to reclaim it, and Pompey got them rolling right away.

Outplaying Best, he not only secured the high ball, but offloaded to Kosi. The Warriors were coming off their own line, but the start of this set had a freshness to it, which Best did his best to destroy with a hard hit on Montoya, while Ponga followed by spearheading a three-man effort with Hunt and Elliott to bring Pompey down. The frustration of that Best-Pompey contest was largely dissipated in this pair of tackles, and the Warriors didn’t get beyond halfway by the time Johnson kicked. It soared high, but Miller didn’t have a care collecting it.

Even so, a four-man pack were in place to bring him back beyond the ten, with Barnett holding up his leg to thwart any residual momentum. Hastings responded with a quick dummy half pickup on play two, and Miller did the same to resume some footy flow on the third, but no sooner had they hit the forty than Brailey went for a 40/20 and got the angle so wrong that CNK was able to take it on the chest and start the next set from his own forty. Yet the Warriors couldn’t do much here, sweeping right on play four, but not bending the line all that much.

Young now stepped into the spotlight, taking Johnson’s next bomb on the full in goal for a twenty-metre restart, carving his way up the right a play later, and then offloading to Tuala. Just as the Steeden was leaving his fingertips, however, Montoya came in hard, straight in the stomach, leaving him winded on the ground for the remainder of the set. The plosive contact also had a ricochet effect, disorienting Tuala in turn, who banged the ball forward with his outstretched left arm before gathering it to his chest with both hands right as he hit the turf.

Moments later, Johnson won the battles of the halves with Ponga for the first time, reaching his full wingspan across the ground in order to dishevel the reinstated five-eighth enough to cough it up, in Newcastle’s third error of the match. The Warriors were charged into some great ruck speed on the following set, and Johnson was twenty-five out when he put boot to ball, but once again it was too shallow, and so Miller took it on the bounce. Ponga’s next kick was just as depthless, and with Kosi mirroring Miller’s take, the arm wrestle continued.

It was clear, now, that there needed to be a big individual effort or combo effort to break the game open, and Harris provided it on the next set, when he slammed into Elliott, and relied on the shuddering contact to ensure the flat pass as he floated the footy forward. Barnett took it, shrugged off Fitzgibbon, and broke through the line, showing it from side to side for about twenty metres, and in the end making just one dummy too many, as a Miller ankle tap brought him down within the ten, and Best tumbled over to halt him a mere five metres out.

Johnson had been barking for it on Barnett’s inside for the duration of this mad run, and he wasted no time in parlaying that splendid speed out to the right edge, where he now delivered a masterful double pump for Pompey to put Kosi over the chalk in the corner for his 10^th NRL try. Shaun had only kicked fourteen goals last year, and swung the Steeden away from the right post now, but the Warriors maintained their momentum when Kosi stuck a boot over the sideline to take Ponga’s kickoff on the full, promising them a restart at pretty close range.

Yet Johnson’s rocks-and-diamonds night continued with another shallow kick, this time for the penalty, as the Wellington wind prevented it gaining more than a couple of metres. He made up for it with a break up the left, and popped it back inside for Ford, who in turn offloaded back to Kosi as Brailey slammed him to ground. Charnze got it next, darting towards the middle of the park, and turning back to face his own goal line, before flicking it on for Niukore to beat Elliott five out from the Newcastle chalk before Leo Thompson got him down.

This was the best left edge play so far from the Warriors, and had the flavour of a team try, so they remained on that side of park, and tried to involve as many players as possible over the next few tackles. Egan set up the next sequence, laying a platform for Johnson to again feed it to Ford, and drill into the brilliance of their last combo. This time Ford couldn’t nail the second phase, as Egan used Afoa as a decoy to set up Harris for a charge into the left padding, before feeding another dummy half ball out to Johnson, who nabbed six more plays.

New Zealand stayed on the left with the fresh set, and now repeated and perfected the edge effort they’d glimpsed over the last minute. Seeing Afoa running hard for the chalk, Egan realized there was no decoy play now, so instead flicked the footy into him to charge several metres through Mann, and then reach out his arm to wrestle the ball down through Thompson. It was the gutsiest try of the game, and a nice moment for Afoa to score in his first match of the season, after only crossing once last year. This time, Johnson added the extras.

Walker packed in a tough run to commence the restart, and reached the brink of the twenty, where Afoa channeled the flow of his mad dash to the chalk into the second carry. Buoyed up by that energy, CNK stood for an age in the tackle with Elliott, and won six again off him, before soft touches from Walker and Johnson set up a sweep that saw Montoya plunge into the ten out on the left. Still pumping, Afoa gave Thompson and Elliot a run for their money on tackle four, and Johnson seized the moment with a short ball for a barnstorming Niukore.

In the most desperate defence so far, Ponga got him by the shorts, and slowed his descent just long enough for Miller to shove his knees between the footy and the grass. With one tackle still up their sleeve, the Warriors headed left, where Miller scooped up Johnson’s grubber right on the line, and busted through a couple of hits to reach the ten. It was Newcastle’s first position in some time, although they were only forty-five out by the time Hastings put boot to ball, before Walker continued to lead New Zealand right up the middle.

Young, like Miller, had to take the kick on the line, but made less headway, thanks to a desperate chase from Martin. For the second time in a row, Jacko kicked in his own end, now thirty-five metres out, before Ponga touched a Pompey-Niukore offload to concede six again midway through the count. Two plays later, Johnson flicked it on for Martin with Ford as decoy run, and the ex-Panther managed to get the tap-on with Tuala right in his face. Wiliame reached for it, Montoya came up with and slammed his way through Hastings to hit the ten.

It was perhaps the most precarious edge play so far, but also the most silkily saved, and yet when the Warriors tried to outdo it a play later, they faltered. Egan glanced right from dummy half and shifted it left, where Martin took it on the fly, drilling deep into the wing before popping a no-looker back inside to Wiliame. The pass was a bit low, and big Brayden knocked it on. New Zealand had their first error in a while, and it was compounded when the Knights won a much-needed penalty two plays later, with both teams sitting on 134 tackles apiece.

Hetherington almost lost the footy offloading to Brailey, but Newcastle regathered quickly, as Elliott got his own back for the six again by winning a holding down penalty from Niukore. Ponga and Best couldn’t quite make it to the left wing, and so Best barged back to the other side of the park, where Brailey delivered a wide ball to Hastings, who was smothered by a Martin-Harris tackle. The side-to-side rhythm culminated with Jacko chipping back to the left, where Kosi leaped up to catch it, containing this last burst for the Knights before the break.

Four plays later, Ford made an epic break up the left, receiving a short ball from Egan and planting an enormous fend on Young to burn his way along the sideline, but without registering Martin crossing in his slipstream and barking for it on his outside. Johnson parlayed this sublime speed into a beautiful dab to the left corner, where Young only just bumped it dead, but the Warriors didn’t do anything with their twenty seconds of dropout, since Pompey didn’t allow Miller’s oblique grubber to arrive at the ten before he collected it.

The Warriors had done well to absorb Newcastle’s momentum, although Ponga would reprise his vision from five-eighth again at the start of the second stanza to put the visitors on top once more. New Zealand had first touch of the ball, and Afoa began with a barnstorming run, setting his sights on Thompson, before Harris took his ninth carry, Niukore broke the thirty, Walker carved up the middle, and CNK entered enemy territory. Johnson’s first bomb back was to the right corner, where Kosi got hands to it, but lost it forward, and over the sideline.

Newcastle now had their first set back from the thirty, and while Hetherington delivered a strong run on the second, he couldn’t break away from Harris enough to manage an offload. Still, Ponga garnered the extra metres by tempting a swinging arm from Niukore, and Elliott brought the footy into the ten for the first attacking chance since the sheds. Hastings followed by dummying to drag Charnze and Afoa right to the chalk, forming a pivot for his men to sweep right, where Miller was halted before he could continue the sequence out to the wing.

With that edge play shut down, Jacko had no choice but to conclude with a chip to the left, where Pompey took it brilliantly right on the line. The Warriors might have been kept deep in the own end on the next set, only gaining thirty-five metres by the time Johnson put boot to ball,  but they’d contained Newcastle efficiently in their first bout of defence since the break, meaning the Knights had to deliver something special now to maintain the momentum. Miller got rolling by taking Johnson’s kick on the fly, muscling through Pompey and hitting the forty.

Hunt componded the charge with ten post-contact metres and an offload for Brailey to set up even more position through a terrific Mann run. Once again, Elliott brought it inside the ten, where he won six again off Walker, and laid a platform for Hetherington to pull three defenders to the brink of the left padding. The big men had carved out the space, and now the Knights built on it with the silkiest left sweep of the night – a very wide ball from Brailey, another wide ball from Jacko, and a gorgeous tip-on from Ponga to enable a Best-Hunt assist.

In spirit, the assist came from Ponga here, who made the most mercurial of contact with the Steeden to open the sliver of space that Hunt needed to dive through before he landed footy-first right in the corner. Ponga’s confidence in the halves had defined the first quarter, so it felt like the Knights might have rediscovered their mojo here, especially when Hastings snuck the kick past the right post to put the visitors ahead once again. However, they hadn’t banked on a New Zealand defence determined to keep them in their own end on the restart.

It began on tackle one, when Miller tried to fend off Egan, but found himself absolutely swamped. Not even Hetherington’s aggression could garner more metres on the second, while Hunt was driven back by Afoa and Harris even after he tumbled to ground. Thompson, too, only just plunged over halfway on tackle four, and so Jacko was just inside his own territory when he sent a steadying kick deep into the corner, as Tuala and Mann compensated for the frustrated set with a committed chase to make plosive contact with Montoya’s return.

Even so, staunch carries from Kosi, CNK and Egan meant that Johnson was in the opposition forty by the time he bombed for Hunt, who took it easily and hurried back to his twenty, desperate not to repeat the restart. The arm-wrestle had resumed, and the Knights couldn’t count on the residual flow of Hunt’s try now – they had to come up with another big individual play. Thompson glimpsed it on play four, searching in vain for an offload, but the next chance came when Miller put it down, only to be saved by a offside from Curran, fresh off the bench.

The next sequence was all Hastings, for better and then worse, as the Tigers export started by taking a quick tap to catch Egan and Afoa napping. From there, Jacko tried to repeat the formula of Hunt’s try, but this time the footy didn’t get beyond Ponga, who was downed by Walker. Luckily, Hetherington regathered the rhythm by dragging five Warriors to within half a metre of the right post, but it all finally devolved with a second effort to reprise the Hunt build-up, as Brailey shot out a similar wide ball from dummy half and Hastings coughed it up.

No doubt Brailey’s pass was poor, but Jacko should also have taken this, and so he banged the ground in frustration as the Warriors packed a scrum from the ten, commencing what would become their biggest accumulation of position all night. A three-man pack prevented Montoya making any net gain on play one, and Ford looked set to face the same challenge as he tried to break the twenty, until his late offload gave Charnze a chance to add another ten to the tally, and open up the play, with Walker exploring the right until Ponga charged at him.

Just as Ford’s offload had elasticised the attack, so Fonua-Blake completely dismantled Ponga, and eclipsed his hit on Walker, to break into opposition territory – and this marked the point when the Warriors really started to come into their own. On the final play, Martin accelerated up the left, and flicked a no-looker in for Wiliame to dance around a Hunt ankle tap and bust through the line, before lobbing the footy back inside for CNK, who dodged away from Young’s fingertips and was well over the chalk by the time that Brailey tumbled onto his back.

Charnze might have knocked on his first touch of the night, but he made up for it with this resounding return to New Zealand, an even more dramatic gesture given the quiet end to his Canberra tenure. On the other side of the Steeden, Jacko’s error had proven more damaging than anyone could have realised, and while Johnson missed a second kick, keeping us to a two-point game, the hosts were in front. Again, Fonua-Blake disposed of Ponga on play one of the restart, while Walker’s big night – seventy metres so far – continued on the next tackle.

Carving up the right once again, he laid a platform for Harris to break the forty, putting Charnze over halfway a beat later, where a late offload set up Egan to nab another ten. Fonua-Blake took his second carry on the fifth, and while Johnson was momentarily dishevelled by Jacob Saifiti flying off his line, he extemporised a chip to the right that very nearly provided Curran with his first try of the season. You couldn’t fault the young hooker’s muscular grounding, but the replay showed that that Pompey had knocked on after Hunt first lost it.

Still, the Warriors had a scrum from the ten, in what would turn out to be their longest campout on the Newcastle line – and Newcastle’s sturdiest, if most error-laden, period of defence. The hosts headed left immediately, with a beautiful ball from Egan to Johnson, and only the most committed of efforts from Miller could summon a pack to repel him from the chalk. Even then, Crossland was called offside as part of the fray, and for a moment this looked like it might take the wind out of the set, as charges from Harris, AFN and Ford went nowhere.

All that frustration for the big men culminated with Harris poising for a right sweep, but finding the path cut off, and yet this was immediately eclipsed by a late Elliott-Walker shoulder charge in back play. The ex-Raider left the park, not for a sin bin but for an interchange, as Daniel Saifiti popped on for a second stint, although the Knights wouldn’t have to wait long before they were a man down, as Crossland was sent off for a professional foul a beat later. With Egan catching Fitzgibbon offside, the Warriors had the best position so far.

No surprise, then, that the volatility spilled over now, as Miller put in the burliest tackle of the game to lift Egan right to the brink of the horizontal, before dumping him so hard on his back that he had to leave the park, bringing Barnett off the bench. A full-on fracas cascaded in goal, but when it was all done the only penalty was a penalty, as Walker slipped into dummy half and the Knights got stuck into defending their line once more. Jacob Saifiti was a one-man brick wall on the right, Martin struggled on the left, and the Warriors swung right yet again.

Finally, Johnson condensed all this side-to-side momentum into a skittering pivot in the middle of the park, where he was comprehensively contained by Daniel Saifiti. Martin did his best to extemporise a grubber to the left, but Jacko was in place to scoop it up. With Walker pinged for a leg pull, Newcastle got a much-needed bump up the field, and a good reward for this extraordinary resilience on their own line, although it was quickly clouded by Ponga clutching his calf after the penalty kick, and limping a little as the last quarter arrived.

The Knights might have only had twelve men on the park but they still managed to summon their longest stint on the New Zealand line, while Ponga built towards maximum flow up the left edge, only to leave the battle just as he was nearing his peak. They started by defending well on the next Warriors’ set, forcing Johnson to boot it five out from halfway, and while the footy soared deep into the red zone, Young took it clean, and played the ball rapidly enough after a tough Wiliame hit to bring Ponga, like Johnson before him, to within five of halfway.

The difference was that Kalyn was only halfway through the count, and the position only increased from there, as Hunt lost it on the ground, but got a lucky break when the refs incorrectly deemed that Fonua-Blake had knocked it from his grasp. Newcastle had a scrum just inside Warriors territory, and got a restart at the end of it, when Montoya had no choice but to take the ball dead when Miller grubbered it straight past Martin and deep in goal. Miller wasn’t as good on the take, allowing an already long Johnson kick to roll back to his red zone.

By the time the Newcastle fullback weathered the chase, he was only just outside his forty, making this more like a decent regular set than a true dropout. Still, the Knights got the dropout after all, as some quick dummy half metres from Brailey up the edge helped lay a platform for Hastings to launch an enormous bomb that sailed straight through Montoya’s outstretched hands, before he tucked it back under his arm and was cleaned up in goal. The visitors were starting to mirror New Zealand’s last stint on the line, albeit more hesitantly.

Brailey compounded the advance by winning six again right on the line, and Jacko built on his momentum by smashing Curran to within a millimetre of the chalk. Ponga made a beeline to the left corner, broke away from Walker in the ten, and got the offload away, before Daniel Saifiti bent the defence again in his wake. Not satisfied, Kalyn took another crack, and plunged over beside the left padding, where Charnze came up with a save that was every bit as impressive as his try, and perhaps the greatest single individual effort of the evening thus far.

Curran initially had Ponga through the waist, but couldn’t hold on, so CNK was the last line of defence, meeting him chest to chest, and then ricocheting to ground beneath him. The force of the contact naturally inclined the Steeden towards the grass, but the ex-Raider reached up with equivalent force to bounce Ponga back towards Walker, who had come in on top. It was a pivotal point in the match, although this didn’t mean that the Newcastle campout in the New Zealand ten had come to an end either, or that they had stopped targeting the left wing.

They were starting to reach the precipice between brilliance and chaos now, as Fitzgibbon rolled more than offloaded the ball backwards, Miller scooped it and handed more than sent it back to Best, who tried to make it third phase himself, but lost it backwards, where Pompey got a touch to gift the Knights yet another six plays. It felt like Ponga had to step up here – you could see him raring for the footy with each new sequence – but instead the independent doctor ordered him off the park for an HIA, and so with only twelve to go, his night was over.

It was a remarkably deflating moment for Ponga’s burgeoning confidence at five-eighth, and while the visitors were now back to thirteen men, nobody could fully compensate for their skipper’s absence. Elliott trotted off the bench, the Knights packed the scrum from the ten, Brailey shifted it left, Miller sent it back inside, and three Warriors piled on to halt Tuala at the ten. Stepping up in the spine, Brailey brought the ball across for Daniel Saifiti to take a steadier, and then headed left off another six again, as Crossland finally returned from the bin.

He was clearly determined to make up for his ten minutes away, dragging Barnett and Walker to within five of the chalk, where he won yet another restart. All this position was starting to feel like a liability for Newcastle, since without a try (at least) to show for it, they’d be handing the rhythm back to New Zealand for the last ten minutes. They reached a crisis point with another Brailey-Hastings-Crossland sweep, bringing Best agonisingly close before a Pompey-CNK-Johnson combo smashed him back, as the Warriors reached their apex in defence too.

This was the moment when some Ponga magic would have made all the difference, but as it was Elliott had to take the next tackle behind the ten, and was slowed down in the play-the-ball too. One final left attack ensued, as Crossland grubbered, and CNK somehow managed to come up with it and land Steeden-first, half a metre in the field of play – a glorious sequel to his save on Ponga, and proof positive of what he can achieve at fullback with belief behind him. The Warriors had fought wave after wave on their line, and come away unvanquished.

A few plays later, Daniel Saifiti almost bobbled the ball from Wiliame’s grasp, but by now the Warriors had harnessed the flow of the game, shedding their last residues of frustration when Johnson clunked the ball off the side of his boot, and directly into touch. Daniel Saifiti took his next tackle from the thirty, and a short ball from Miller put Thompson fifteen out soon after, clearing up space for Brailey to dart into the ten, and pop it along for Elliott to drive Barnett and AFN to within five of the line. Everything now coalesced around a left edge play.

With Ponga around, this might have come together, but as it was Kosi flung in low, and tumbled Hunt to ground, at the back of what looked like a potential assist from Crossland, before Pompey delivered the follow-up effort on the turf. This was desperation defence, prompting Pompey into a big carry early in the next set, and a final burst of energy from Egan, who scored on virtually his first play off the bench. He scooted into dummy half on the fifth, and set up Johnson for a soaring bomb, before crashing over beside the posts a tackle later.

Hunt leaped up to greet Johnson’s kick in the air, but ended up rolling it back to the ten, and while Best got hands to it, Martin delivered a David-on-Goliath effort to bump him over the sideline. The Warriors had a full set five metres out, and Egan brought it all together at the start of the count, culminating New Zealand’s enterprising attitude this evening by dumming right before pivoting back to slice through an Elliott-Thompson gap and then shrug off Miller at the death to score beside the left padding, where Crossland had held him up earlier.

Ponga was back on the bench as Johnson was lining up the tee, and with the footy sailing through the posts, the hosts were beyond a converted try lead. Alternating errors between both teams closed out the night, which had been a forerunner of the extraordinary achievements the Warriors have on the ladder this season. On the other side of the Steeden, this was a pretty heartbreaking opener for Newcastle, and for Ponga in particular, who would return for a bang for a spectacular win over the Tigers at Leichhardt in Round 2.