Sporting Declaration: Why Kalyn Ponga will be a target when he returns

It can't be much fun being a spot player in the NRL. Every team has them, and every game they take the field knowing that the opposition have been studying videos all week, devising a plan to isolate them and maximise the effectiveness of the heavy traffic inevitably heading in their direction.

I was reminded of what a thankless task that must be when I was walking the dogs down at the local park this week.

Cricket season over, the footy goalposts have been recently erected and the fields marked out with black lines of whatever substitutes for creosote these days.

I looked at the line 10 metres away. Up in the safety of the press box, or on TV, from the comfort of my sofa, 10 metres never seems like a big deal.

But at ground level, I was surprised by how far away 10 metres actually was.

And then I tried to imagine what it must be like to have a very large human, weighing upwards of 105 kilograms, charging directly at me from the other side of that line, at high speed.

If that's not daunting enough, factor in the likelihood that the ball-carrier can probably step off both feet, runs with his knees pumping like pistons and uses both forearms as a bumper bar just at the point of impact.

And of course, don't forget that 10 metres is basically the minimum distance an attacking player has to wind up. There are countless moments in every game that provide even greater opportunity to reach maximum velocity.

And that, in a nutshell, is what Kalyn Ponga can expect when he makes his long-awaited return for the Newcastle Knights, most likely in the round-eight clash with North Queensland on April 22.

Even before his latest bout of concussion, Ponga would have been a spot player - or whatever else they're called these days - pinpointed by every opposition coach.

That's only logical.

Playmakers are targeted every week in defence, because theoretically the more energy they expend tackling, the less they will have to inflict damage when in possession.

They are also, more often than not, the most diminutive players on the field, and in any walk of life, the biggest bullies are rarely interested in picking on someone their own size.

It's the law of the jungle in the NRL, and Ponga was always likely to be hunted from the moment his positional switch from fullback to five-eighth was confirmed in the pre-season.

His head clash while attempting to tackle Wests Tigers back-rower Asu Kepaoa in round two, which prompted another stint on the sidelines and a rushed trip to Canada for state-of-the-art neurological scans and assessment, has only intensified the spotlight on the 25-year-old as he prepares to make his comeback.

Somehow, in the space of the next two weeks, Newcastle's coaching staff have to ensure he is physically and mentally right to return to the firing line.

To put this time frame in context, just consider that back in 2020, when the NRL was preparing to resume after a COVID-enforced hiatus that eventually lasted for 10 weeks, Knights coach Adam O'Brien was concerned that three weeks of full-contact training was "starting to cut it really fine".

"Once it gets less than that, the duty of care you have to the players starts to become a talking point then," O'Brien said at the time.

If, as expected, he plays against the Cowboys, Ponga will have had only a fortnight of intensive conditioning and contact training to prepare himself.

That is likely to include a crash course (pun intended) in tackling technique.

While there is no questioning Ponga's courage or willingness to put his body on the line, it is no real revelation to suggest he's not a great defender.

A touch-football sensation as a teenager and a schoolboy rugby union star, Ponga has played most of his 99 NRL games standing well behind the impact zone.

In that time, he's made 397 tackles and missed 180. In other words, he has averaged four tackles per game throughout his career and missed almost a third of those he has attempted.

And now, unless O'Brien masterminds some strategy to minimise his defensive workload, Ponga finds himself playing in a position in which he might be expected to make 20 or 30 tackles a game, many of which will be on big, mobile back-rowers.

As Darren Lockyer - who knows a thing or two about switching from fullback to five-eighth - noted after Ponga's concussion against the Tigers: "He got off the defensive line quickly but he didn't steady himself enough going into the contact."

As well as highlighting Ponga's technical shortcomings, Lockyer added that, as fullback: "Rarely do you have a front-rower or back-rower running at you."

Lockyer encountered the same dilemma during his own illustrious career. And while he was never a robust defender, he was very rarely the weak link in any team, despite his lightweight 85-kilogram frame.

Other champion five-eighths like Brad Fittler, Wally Lewis, Laurie Daley, Brett Kenny and Terry Lamb were all-rounders, who defended as strongly as they attacked.

Only time will tell if Ponga can emulate them.

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