Edrick Lee stands a whopping 13 cms taller than his Australian basketball superstar cousin Patty Mills.
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But Knights coach Adam O'Brien is convinced his towering 196 cm winger didn't get enough chances last season to make use of his height and reach advantage.
Lee scored six tries in 14 matches in his debut season for the club. His first was an exhilarating 90 metre effort to win the game for the Knights against Cronulla in the opening round of the season at McDonald Jones Stadium.
He was one of the club's best players before breaking his arm during a 26-12 win over Brisbane in round 15, an injury that prematurely ended his season. He missed the final 10 games but still featured as one of the finalists in the Dally M winger of the year award.
But despite his attacking strikepower and finishing qualities, Lee's opportunities to score off kicks were few and far between. O'Brien has been working at pre-season training on rectifying that this year.
We leaked some points last year on last plays and didn't score that many tries and probably didn't kick enough for our wingers.
- Coach Adam O'Brien
He and his coaching staff have identified the side's attacking kicking game as one area where some big improvements can be made.
And the new rule brought in by the NRL during the off-season that makes it illegal for an attacking player to be tackled in the air when he is contesting a kick only favours even more the sides who have some tall timber on the flanks.
"Edrick's been doing some great things for us in the pre-season and the changes to the rules about competing in the air, that's an area where Edrick can really give us a bit of strike in," O'Brien said.
"We have put a lot of work into our kick-catch stuff so far. It's an area that we identified and really needed to improve both with the footy and without it. We leaked some points last year on last plays and didn't score that many tries and probably didn't kick enough for our wingers so that kicking area and our last plays has been a big focus for us."
Lee is one of a host of bigger name players to be left out of the 18-man squad to go to Perth for the NRL Nines next week.
The Knights, to be led by co-captains Aidan Guerra and Kurt Mann, will include retired former skipper Kurt Gidley and the likes of backrowers Mitch Barnett and Sione Mata'utia, outside back Hymel Hunt and a number of the club's younger brigade.
Development players Tex Hoy, Mat Croker and Simi Sasagi and trialists Tyrone Roberts-Davis and Matt Soper-Lawler will all make the trip.
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