Knights football director Peter Parr says it would be "unfair" to expect the club's new English recruits to fire from the season-opener next year as they adjust to life in Australia.
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The Knights unveiled their latest additions Kai Pearce-Paul and Will Pryce last week after the pair arrived from England.
Pryce was expected to begin pre-season training this week, while Pearce-Paul, who finished his 2023 campaign later than his countryman, will start at a later date.
Pearce-Paul, 22, was part of the Wigan side that won last month's Super League grand final. Over the past four years, he played 61 top-flight club games in England. The back-rower appears more likely to slot into Newcastle's 17 early next season.
Pryce, a versatile back, is 20 but he debuted at 18 for Huddersfield. He made 46 first-grade appearances over the past three years.
"They're only young men," Parr said.
"Will, for example, it's the first time he has moved out of home. He's moved out of home, and moved countries.
"It's a big move for young people.
"The first thing that we've got to do is make sure that we look after them. Make sure they're settled off the field, make sure their living arrangements are appropriate."
Pearce-Paul and Pryce have settled into temporary accommodation in Newcastle's city centre.
They are the second pair of English players the Knights have signed in recent years.
Ahead of the 2021 season, Dominic Young and Bailey Hodgson joined the club on three-year deals. Young was 19 at the time and had played two Super League games, 18-year-old Hodgson just a single match.
Three years on, both players have now left the club. Young has joined the Roosters for the next four seasons, while Hodgson is taking up a second-string deal with Manly.
Given the player Young developed into, scoring a club-record 25 tries last season, Knights fans are understandably excited about the latest English recruits.
But if Young and Hodgson's stints at the Knights are anything to go by, fans should be tempering expectations of what impact Pearce-Paul and Pryce might have in 2024.
Young had a difficult first season before emerging as a genuine star in his second. Hodgson was hampered by injuries in Newcastle and never played NRL.
Pearce-Paul and Pryce are more experienced than Young and Hodgson were when they joined the club, but Parr believes it may take some time before they make their mark.
"If you're going to bring young people from the other side of the world to come and play football for you, there's got to be a degree of patience," he said.
"They can play, there's no doubt about that, but I think it's unfair on them to think that they're going to be setting the NRL alight in round one."
Pearce-Paul would appear a genuine chance to fill the void left by back-rower Lachlan Fitzgibbon on Newcastle's left edge, but he does prefer the right.
Knights coach Adam O'Brien said last month he would wait until he had a good look at Pryce in the pre-season before deciding what position he might be targeted at.
The son of English great Leon Pryce who played almost 500 club games, the 20-year-old was mostly deployed at five-eighth and fullback in the Super League.
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