Newcastle Knights five-eighth Kalyn Ponga has admitted his performance wasn't up to scratch against the Parramatta Eels during a 43-12 thumping on Friday evening.
Ponga missed a staggering eight tackles in defence and struggled to get his Newcastle side onto the front foot in attack during the pasting, with the Knights losing their third game on the hop.
It was Ponga's second game back from a long lay off for concussion, and his first 80-minute performance after coming off the bench last week against the North Queensland Cowboys.
Ponga labelled the performance a learning experience.
"I have to own my performance. I'm obviously disappointed with it," Ponga said during the post-game press conference.
"My second game back. It's definitely a learning experience. I'm not going to let that performance eat me up, I'm going to look at it, learn from it.
"While I want to be the best now, it's a journey, it's an experience and I want to be better, but I have to own my performance tonight."
Ponga refuted claims that he was lacking confidence after his long concussion lay off though.
"I think in terms of my head and the concussion side of things, I'm alright," Ponga said when asked if he was easing his way back from his long lay off," Ponga said.
"We have a break, but I'm probably going to work in the break, because I want to be better than I was tonight. It's not a head knock thing, it's not that I'm not confident in my head, I just need to be better."
Coach Adam O'Brien confirmed Ponga would remain in the number six jersey moving forward though, despite the club arguably playing better when the star was out injured.
"Of course," O'Brien said.
"It was his third game this year, he hadn't finished at six. He played 80 minutes at six tonight, it's the first time. I'm not stupid."
Despite Ponga missing eight tackles and struggling in attack, Parramatta Eels' captain Clint Gutherson said it was never part of the plan to attack Ponga, but rather, to ensure he was subdued.
"Not really," Gutherson said when asked if there was a plan to attack Ponga.
"We just wanted to run hard and get the opportunity. I thought that right edge defensively, Will [Penisini], Mitch [Moses] and Haze [Dunster] on the wing, I thought they were great and shut down every opportunity they had. When you can take him out of the game like we did, it's always going to be good on our end."