Newcastle Knights coach Adam O'Brien has confirmed it was always planned for Kalyn Ponga to come off the bench in his return to the NRL against the North Queensland Cowboys on Saturday evening.
The game ultimately saw the Knights come up just two points short against the Cowboys after a Tom Dearden try 15 minutes from fulltime put the home side back ahead in the contest.
Payten said it would have been a tough ask on Ponga to play 80 minutes in Townsville on his return to the competition.
"As soon as we knew we were going to play him, I anticipated a pretty big response from the Cowboys. I knew the week they would have had, and we wanted him out there in the clutch of the game, and I thought it was a big ask for how long he had been out to come and play 80 minutes up here, so we thought we'd delay the start a bit and have him at the back end," O'Brien explained during his post-game press conference.
Ponga, who played his first game since suffering a concussion in Round 2 against the Wests Tigers, was originally named to play in the halves, ultimately spent 53 minutes on the park, running 88 metres from ten carries, adding a try assist, four tackle breaks, two line break assists, a pair of offloads, 113 kicking metres and 7 tackles with only a single miss.
O'Brien, who has been sweating on Ponga's return to hand the Knights an extra X-Factor, said he was happy enough with Ponga's return to the competition despite the loss to the Cowboys.
The coach admitted there were some timing issues with Ponga's inclusion in the halves once he came onto the park, but suggested things will improve with Ponga playing on both sides of the park.
"I thought he looked very busy. He looked dangerous," O'Brien said.
"Our connections with him will get better, there was some timing stuff there with Fitz [Lachlan Fitzgibbon]. The more times he touched [the ball], the better we were looking, so that's exciting for us.
"We don't want to lock him into one side, let him bob up everywhere, and I thought he made a couple of nice tackles."
Tyson Gamble, who has played five-eighth in Ponga's absence after making the switch from the Brisbane Broncos during the off-season, started last night's game again before moving into a lock forward role.
It's unclear though if he will keep his spot in O'Brien's best 17 during the coming weeks, although the fact that Kurt Mann and Phoenix Crossland are splitting halves duties makes it increasingly likely that he will be named for a huge clash against the Parramatta Eels next Friday in western Sydney.
