Optimistic O'Brien sees bright future for young Knights

Even amid the doom and gloom of losing at home for the ninth time from 11 games this year, Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien remained optimistic there are better days ahead for the Knights.

Missing as many as eight regulars for a multitude of reasons, the under-strength Knights scored five tries in 40 minutes to build a 22-8 half-time lead over Canberra at McDonald Jones Stadium on Sunday — only to collapse to a 28-22 defeat.

With 30 seconds left on the clock, former Canberra winger Edrick Lee, who had already scored twice, stretched out to plant the ball down for what would have been one of the tries of the season, and would have given another ex-Raider Anthony Milford a chance to send the game to extra time.

But the try was disallowed as Dolphins-bound Lee could only find the paint of the touch in-goal line, and the Raiders hung on to win and remain in the finals race.

O’Brien felt gutted about the result but was proud of his players’ efforts, especially 19-year-old debutants Krystian Mapapalangi and Oryn Keeley, who became respectively the 333rd and 334th players to represent the Knights in an NRL game.

Mapapalangi’s first touch was an assist for Lee’s first try, and defensively he forced an error from Xavier Savage and stopped Matt Timoko from scoring.

A former Manly SG Ball player, Mapapalangi joined the Knights midway through last year and graduated to their top-30 squad this season.

“Krystian in particular didn’t look out of place at all. He was a bit buggered there towards the end, he had some cramp going on, but he had some really good touches,” O’Brien said.

“Both of them, clearly their best footy is in front of them – they’re only young men at the start of their journey.”

Keeley, who represented NSW Under-19s this year, hails from the Central Coast but has been in the Knights’ junior representative ranks for several seasons.

The strapping back-rower, who played the final 14 minutes to replace Mat Croker, was only meant to be Newcastle’s 18th man on Sunday but earned a last-minute promotion when Tyson Frizell aggravated a rib injury during the warm-up.

“Oryn got told after the two-minute bell. Basically, that’s when he found out he was actually playing in the team,” O’Brien explained.

“We were going to give him the experience of rewarding him. He’s had a really good year in our juniors, he’s played junior Origin and stuff like that, just his training ethic when they come in early of a morning, so this was a bit of a reward for him to experience game day as an 18th man.

“Then next minute I’m shaking his hand and telling him he’s playing.

“There’s a good group of kids down there. I know everyone wants to comment about all the ones that we’ve let go but there’s a good group there that we’ve kept, but we’d rather feed on the negative at the moment.”

Captain Jayden Brailey had hoped the Knights could have hung on to give Mapapalangi and Keeley a winning start to their NRL careers.

“We had adversity right up to the two-minute bell, but we had a lot to play for tonight,” Brailey said.

“We can’t make the finals but we wanted to make the night special for those two, and you can always find things to play for in the NRL.

“The way we started the game probably showed that emotion and desire that we’ve been looking for, so I guess we can take that moving forward.”

Frizell joined Kalyn Ponga, Mitch Barnett, Lachlan Fitzgibbon, Jake Clifford and Kurt Mann in the casualty ward, Daniel Saifiti was a late scratching because he tested positive to COVID at training on Saturday, and Bradman Best and Enari Tuala had been stood down for disciplinary reasons.

O’Brien said Best then tweaked a hamstring at training last week and might not play again this year, and Frizell would be checked in the lead-up to their game against Gold Coast at Robina next Sunday.

“We had to overcome a lot, not just the personnel but a lot for the last month, so I’m pretty happy with the guys. I’m gutted, because we all wanted to win, but it’s a dressing-room that I can look them all in the eye and be proud of them, I know that. They fought," he said.