Cory Denniss to make NRL debut for Newcastle Knights against Canberra Raiders

FULLBACK Jaelen Feeney has been dumped, but Knights coach Nathan Brown will blood yet another debutant for Newcastle’s clash with the Raiders.

LESS than a month ago, teenage trainee telecommunications electrician Cory Denniss would not have even registered a bleep on the Nathan Brown selection radar.

But injuries to three outside backs including regular winger Akuila Uate and the Newcastle coach’s decision to dump fullback Jaelen Feeney after two shaky performances in the top grade has seen Brown forced to dig deep for reinforcements.

He dug up Denniss, an 18 year old Lakes United local junior who has come through the Knights junior system and hasn’t put a foot wrong in two appearances in the centres for the club’s Holden Cup side this season.

Is he ready? Possibly not. But Brown insists he is not putting a player out there who we won’t be talking about in 12 months’ time.

“He’s a great young kid who I’m confident will handle himself,” Brown said.

“Ideally, you’d probably like to hold him back a bit longer but with three outside backs injured, we are not quite deep enough. We don’t have that luxury.

“We looked at a couple of young blokes to come up into the top grade but to be honest, Cory was the standout choice and he reaffirmed that to us with the way he has trained.

“He has a good natural feel and grasp of the game, he’s 190 cms and weighs 94 kgs and we don’t have too many of those types of backs.

“This time next year, he’ll be 100 plus kgs and I reckon you’ll be writing plenty about him. Put it this way, he has not been selected to just fill a hole.”

Denniss will become the sixth NRL debutant under Brown in just three games this season with Feeney, Jacob and Daniel Saifiti and David Bhana all blooded for the first time in round one.

The experiment of playing Fenney at fullback however has lasted just two games with the former halfback paying the price for several errors at the back in the past two weeks.

Feeney struggled in his first two matches as Knights coach.

Queensland Origin star Dane Gagai will be switched from centre to fullback where he spent some time last season with Sione Mata’utia set to play his first NRL game of the season partnering his brother Pat in the centres.

“He’s a confident kid so I’m sure Jaelen will be back,” Brown said.

“He’s probably just had a few too many errors in his first couple of games and it gives us an opportunity to have a look at Gags (Gagai) at fullback to see what he can give us.”