The Newcastle Knights led by Kalyn Ponga have hung on against a Melbourne Storm side missing almost $3 million worth of talent

Although the jury is still out on the switch of halfbacks, the Newcastle coach was all praise for his captain Kalyn Ponga pivotal to a 14-12 victory for the Knights over a Melbourne Storm side, missing many stars.

The fullback battle between Kalyn Ponga and Ryan Papenhuyzen livened up the encounter. Picture: NRL Imagery

Newcastle have held off a Melbourne side missing almost $3 million to claim their first win of the season.

The Knights looked to be cruising to an easy victory on Sunday night when they romped out to a 14-0 lead in front of a bumper home crowd at McDonald Jones Stadium.

But a Storm line-up missing Cameron Munster, Jahrome Hughes and Nelson Asofa-Solomona cut the lead to two on a Tyran Wishart try with seven minutes remaining.

However the Knights held on to nab not only their first victory of the year, but hand Melbourne their first defeat of the young season.

“Relieved. At the end of the day we needed the win. I thought our first half in particular was excellent,” Knights coach Adam O’Brien said.

Kalyn Ponga’s battle with fullback counterpart Ryan Papenhuyzen livened up what was an otherwise error-riddled affair, with the pair trading electric moments of brilliance throughout the match.

Papenhuyzen kickstarted the comeback with an opportunistic try in the second half, but Ponga took the points with a brilliant two-man cut-out pass from dummy-half for Enari Tuala in the first half.

Both sides committed a combined 25 errors and 82 missed tackles.

Ponga tackled by Tui Kamikamica and Eliesa Katoa on Sunday. Picture: Scott Gardiner/Getty Images

HALVES PROBLEM

O’Brien made the controversial decision to axe playmaker Jackson Hastings for Jack Cogger and he would feel somewhat justified as his team took a step forward with the win.

Cogger endured a mixed night, committing three errors in the first half alone, including a kick out on the full early in the first half.

However his selection came on the same night Ponga produced arguably his best performance of the season.

Asked about his halves’ performance, O’Brien said: “I thought, led by (Ponga), we were quite dangerous with the ball, especially in the first half.

“Things got a bit wild in the second, but all in all for the first week, I’m pretty happy with how it went. We’ll only get better.

Jack Cogger had a mixed night against the Storm. Picture: Scott Gardiner/Getty Images

“I just want to enjoy that win. I don’t need any headlines about chopping and changing and all of that.”

Hastings played in the Knights’ 50-24 win over North Sydney in the reserve grade curtain-raiser.

STORM STRENGTH

Any side with roughly a quarter of their salary cap absent from the line-up was always going to struggle, even a side as consistent as the Storm have been under Craig Bellamy’s watch.

They then lost centre Reimis Smith to a suspected rib injury midway through the first half.

But, down 14-0 at halftime, Melbourne showed plenty of grit and back-to-back second-half tries to Papenhuyzen and Wishart gave them a chance to snatch the two points late.

It was arguably Papenhuyzen’s most encouraging outing since his return from injury.

There was an early scare but Ryan Papenhuyzen showed promising signs. Picture: Scott Gardiner/Getty Images

Hughes will make a welcome return to take on Brisbane after next week’s bye, while Asofa-Solomona will be a chance after making his first appearance of the season with 48 minutes with North Sydney in the NSW Cup.

“He aggravated it a couple of times too. He’s missed a lot of training,” Craig Bellamy said of Asofa-Solomona.

“He had two full weeks off it before today. He’s still pretty much underdone. We’ll see how it progresses from there.”

FLIPPING MOMENT

Papenhuyzen suffered a serious scare when he had his legs taken out by Leo Thompson while leaping for a bomb in the second half.

The Storm No. 1, who has endured a luckless past two seasons battling major kneecap and ankle surgeries, flipped in mid-air, and was fortunate not to suffer another injury.

Thompson was played on report.

But in a further positive for the Knights, co-captain Jayden Brailey made a successful comeback from an ACL injury when he was injected from the bench early in the second half.

“He would’ve been extremely nervous. I was crook in the guts this morning. I’m so proud of him. it’s been a real long slog for him,” O’Brien said.