NRL 2023: The inside story on Kalyn Ponga’s rejection of Wayne Bennett and the Dolphins
The Dolphins desperately wanted Kalyn Ponga to be the club’s franchise face but it wasn’t to be. Both sides tell their story of the pitch and the rejection here.
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Wayne Bennett promised Kalyn Ponga the Dolphins would be “winners” during a fascinating series of meetings aimed at making the Maroons Origin star the face of Queensland’s NRL expansion club.
Ponga was set to go head-to-head with Bennett’s Dolphins on Friday night for the first time since rejecting a $5 million offer from Redcliffe’s NRL newcomers.
Concussion has ruled Ponga out of the showdown and doubt is surrounding the future of Newcastle’s $6 million pin-up boy.
If Bennett and the Dolphins had their way, Ponga would have been getting kitted up in the away dressing rooms at McDonald Jones Stadium.
Armed with a clear salary cap and Bennett’s seven premierships history, the Dolphins launched a determined pursuit of Ponga last year to become the club’s marquee signing for their 2023 launch.
But it wasn’t to be. This is how it played out.
THE ZOOM PITCH
As Bennett, Dolphins CEO Terry Reader and recruitment boss Peter O’Sullivan drew up a list of potential foundation signings, one name appeared near the top.
Kalyn Ponga.
At 24, Ponga was entering the prime of his career despite some injury-crippled seasons at Newcastle.
Few in the game move like the fleet-footed former junior sports prodigy, who forgo a professional golf career and was signed by the AFL’s Brisbane Lions before committing to rugby league.
Ponga had it all. The rock star looks and personality with the talent to match, as evidenced by his man-of-the-match performance in last year’s Origin decider.
He appealed to the men, women and children the Dolphins wanted to attract to the game.
The Dolphins went into a Zoom interview early last year with a clear plan.
Reader would pitch the Dolphins’ off-field vision for Ponga, how he could become the most marketable athlete in Queensland and the commercial bonuses that came with that.
Bennett would talk about what he could do for Ponga’s football on the field given he was at a mediocre club in Newcastle.
“Now, before we go on this (meeting with) Ponga, what’s our plan of attack? Because we are dealing with a couple of sharpies here,” Bennett is captured saying in the documentary Dawn of the Dolphins.
“You want this kid to be the face of the club. Is that what you are gonna tell him?”
Reader: “I think he’s our (franchise player) … are you happy for me to go down his brand part or … what do you want to do?”
Bennett: “Don’t you promise him one thing that you can’t deliver on.”
Reader: “Yeah, oh no, I’m just talking about the market and about up here.”
Bennett: “Well, they’ll want to know what the market is, so you handle it, but you handle it with f*****g (care) … so there’s no doubt in his mind that you can deliver on that. There’s no doubt in his mind he is coming here to play rugby league.”
Bennett, Reader and O’Sullivan dialled into the meeting with Ponga and his father Andre, who acts as his advisor and manager.
The Dolphins were in the midst of a difficult recruitment drive, struggling to land players amid the uncertainty of what was being built at Redcliffe.
Bennett, 73, went to his trump card.
“You know, people talk about winning premierships like it’s like having a drink of coffee,” he said to Ponga.
“You have to look at your club and say, ‘How many things are we doing right here?’ You look around and you’re honest with yourself and go, ‘Shit’. And you see other players and that.
“Mate, it’s an absolute commitment. I know what it feels like, looks like, and I’ve done it, OK?
“And that’s the problem with the guys that talk about it. A lot of them, they have never done it, so I know all the things that have gotta be done to do it.
“That‘s what I’m going to build here. I’m not building a shit club, that’s gonna, you know, not be what we’re were talking about today.
“So I’ll get the right people here with a winning attitude, to bring all the things that we need.
“We’ve done our thinking, so we know where we’re at. Mate, I want you here and we are both going to be winners.”
THE PENTHOUSE CHALLENGE
In the weeks after the Zoom pitch, Ponga agonised over his future.
He was in his fifth season at Newcastle after leaving the North Queensland Cowboys in 2017 and was yet to get remotely close to winning a premiership with the Knights.
Newcastle had moved mountains for him and after back-to-back finals appearances in 2020-21, Ponga felt the club was moving forward.
However the Dolphins were an attractive proposition with a $1.3 million-a-season salary on the table that would make him the NRL’s highest-paid player and the king of Queensland.
The Dolphins decided to make one final pitch in late March, meeting the Pongas in the penthouse of the Star of the Sea hotel at Terrigal on NSW’s Central Coast, a 90-minute drive from Newcastle.
Instead of the Dolphins begging Ponga for his signature, Bennett hit him between the eyes.
“He was pretty stern with me and honest with me,” Ponga told News Corp after the meeting.
“He was pretty forward. He doesn’t have time to beat around the bush or tell you what you want to hear.”
Bennett issued Ponga a challenge.
Did he want to chase premiership glory under a proven coach or coast along at the Knights?
In a way, Ponga was offended.
“Before pre-season I was definitely leaning towards going,” Ponga said.
“The club hasn’t been stable – new coach, halfback on the way out, high performance unit … there has been a lot of change.
“I just don’t think his perception of the club is what I think it is here. I walked away from that saying there are a lot of people working hard at the club, I am challenging myself, the boys are challenging me.
“Wayne, from everything I have heard, is the best. He is a great coach. But there are all these people working hard in this club that I didn’t want to walk away from.
“That moment was big in terms of seeing Wayne, in terms of how I was going to walk out of that meeting.
“He was all about getting me to play my best footy. I just thought where can I do that? I think I can do it here.
“He is not in these walls. He doesn’t know what is going on in this club. For me, I know what is going on here. That is why I stayed.”
Days later, Ponga rejected the Dolphins and inked a five-year extension worth $6 million with Newcastle. He struggled with numerous concussions for the remainder of the season.
Bennett and the Dolphins moved on, assembling a foundation team that has started their inaugural season 2-0 despite being wooden spoon favourites.
They’re still searching for their Kalyn Ponga.
THE GREATEST AFL CONTRACT THAT NEVER WAS
– Robert Craddock
Kalyn Ponga’s five-year contract ended late last year – that’s the one with the Brisbane Lions not the Newcastle Knights.
Somewhere in a long forgotten corner of a filing cabinet at the Lions there is a five year AFL contract with Ponga’s name written in bold letters at the top of it and the years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 individually broken out.
The bottom of it is signed by Ponga’s father Andre in a power of attorney capacity which was essential because Kalyn was just 17 when he agreed to the Lions offer which became the greatest Queensland AFL deal that never was.
The Lions chased him for five years, finally got their man – or, boy – and were looking forward to a massive end of season announcement.
Everything changed when the Cowboys handed Ponga a first grade debut on the wing against the Broncos in a final in 2016 and news of the AFL deal leaked out.
The Newcastle Knights beat off a large group of swarming clubs to sign him two months later. Suddenly the AFL deal was off and he was gone.
The mind boggles where Ponga, who is fighting for his career after a series of concussion knocks playing for Newcastle, would be now if he accepted the Lions deal.
Should have gone to the Gabba?
“For one, he would be one of a galaxy of stars and not a hunted man each week like he is at Newcastle,’’ one AFL source noted.
As for the head-knocks, former Brownlow Medallist Brad Hardie does not believe it is a formality Ponga would have suffered less in the AFL.
“The thing about rugby league is most of the dangerous is right in front of you,’’ Hardie said.
“In the AFL it can come from anywhere because it is a 360 degree game. You can back in to a pack or put your head over the ball so it’s hard to say he would have found less trouble.’’
The thought provoking thing for Ponga is that he had options everywhere and, if his rugby league ends well before he wants it to, may ponder what life could have looked like in other sports.
He was a New Zealand Under-13 golf champion and his father loved the basic manners the game taught him. He was a schoolboy rugby union star in Brisbane as well.
Rugby league got its man but will it get the next Ponga?
Every time Ponga takes a major head knock the affects rumble all the way to junior dressing rooms and lounge rooms where parents discuss the merits of concussion rules in the toughest game of all.
It’s not just the man himself who wobbles – it’s the entire game.
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