NRL 2023: A game of golf and the story behind Kalyn Ponga joining Newcastle Knights
Imagine trying to attract the best young player in rugby league when you are in the process of winning three straight wooden spoons. How the Knights did the impossible and signed Kalyn Ponga.
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Imagine trying to attract the best young player in rugby league when you are in the process of winning three straight wooden spoons.
In 2016, Newcastle Knights coach Nathan Brown identified a then 19-year-old Kalyn Ponga as a future superstar of the NRL.
Someone who could become the town’s next Andrew Johns but in a different position.
That year the Knights won one game.
So Brown and Knights general manager of football Darren Mooney called up club legend Danny Buderus and organised a game of golf.
The club flew Ponga’s parents and his sister from Townsville to Newcastle for a weekend.
Buderus booked The Vintage golf course in the Hunter Valley.
It was him and Mooney against Ponga and his father Andre.
“We won $12 off them,” Buderus laughs. “Kalyn still talks about it.”
The 18 holes over four hours were used to sell the Newcastle story – not necessarily around the struggling NRL club but more the lifestyle, the beaches, cafes and bars.
And it being a rugby league heartland.
“It was all planned to showcase our town – and they loved it,” Buderus said. “Afterwards we had a swim at Merewether Beach and dinner.
“It was a bold move for their family to relocate.
“We might have been down the bottom of the ladder but he believed in the club and direction we were heading.
“He could see the potential.”
Ponga loves his golf.
As a 12-year-old he won the New Zealand under-13s national title.
He now plays off low single figures.
They say he was good enough to become a professional but preferred team sports.
Other clubs with bigger cheque books were interested, too.
“I remember Teddy (James Tedesco) was on the market at the same time and he went to the Roosters,” Brown said.
“So that at least took them out of the equation.”
Eventually he signed in November, 2016, to start at the Knights in 2018.
Four years, $2.4m plus bonuses chucked in for representative footy.
Brown recalls how the Knights chased Ponga from the beginning.
“Darren Mooney sent me a tape and said ‘watch this kid from North Queensland play,’” Brown said.
“I watched him for a couple of minutes. It was an easy one to work out.
“So we went from there. Matty Gidley (Knights CEO) supported us. At the time, people said we were silly to be paying all the money for a kid.
“But Gids backed us, we managed to get it done and the rest is history.”
The signs were there from the very beginning when Ponga turned up to start the pre-season in late 2017.
“I remember him at his first training session,” Brown said.
“No one could get near him. His skills, his speed, everything. He was special.”
Brown, who now works in pathways for the Parramatta Eels, is so happy for Ponga and the Knights.
“I reckon his season turned when Billy Slater rang him and said he was picking Reece Walsh instead of him in State of Origin,” Brown said.
“I reckon he’s used that to challenge himself. From that moment he’s been almost unstoppable.
“It’s great for Newcastle and rugby league.”
Originally published as NRL 2023: A game of golf and the story behind Kalyn Ponga joining Newcastle Knights
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