Newcastle’s Krystian Mapapalangi knocked out in 12-second nightmare

You hate to see any player injured — especially in pre-season — but players don’t get any more unlucky than Krystian Mapapalangi.

Ugly scenes to kick off the pre-season. Photo: Fox Sports

Some players have absolutely no luck.

The pre-season challenge is in full swing as the Newcastle Knights dominated the Cronulla Sharks 44-18 on The Central Coast.

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It shows last year’s semi-finalists have continued from where they finished in 2023 where they won 10 straight games to finish fifth on the ladder before they were knocked out by the Warriors in New Zealand in the second week of play-offs.

But one of the club’s young guns spent much of it watching from the stands after suffering a season-ending shoulder injury.

The 21-year-old Krystian Mapapalangi is hoping to fill the boots of Dominic Young, or at least make the most of his chance without the Englishman ahead of him.

However, there’s a big chance he won’t remember his first tackle back after the young Knight had his head caught in an awkward position while trying to make a hit on Sharks prop Oregon Kaufusi, just 12 seconds into his return match.

That's not good. Photo: Fox Sports

Not what you want to see. Photo: Fox Sports

Matt Russell said: “This is what you don’t want to see.

“He makes his first tackle in the pre-season challenge and that’s the result.

“You want all players to have good luck but you want some players you just wish would shake the injuries more than others and Krystian is one of them given his recent history.”

In great scenes Mapapalangi was helped to his feet and off the field but he was clearly done for the day with category one concussion symptoms.

After some positive injury returns over the past few days this one couldn’t have gone much worse - Krystian Mapapalangi concussed in his first tackle returning after 2 shoulder reconstructions last season.

Being a clear Cat1 he won’t play next week at minimum, thoughts with him pic.twitter.com/Gi1AFLhj08

— NRL PHYSIO (@nrlphysio) February 17, 2024

Mapapalangi debuted for the Knights in round 23 of 2022 but missed the entire 2023 season, having required two shoulder reconstructions.

He played just one reserve grade match in 2023.

But the injury didn’t have too much of an impact on the score with the Knights flexing their muscles.

It doesn’t mean there aren’t headaches for Newcastle with the round one halves conundrum no clearer after Jack Cogger and Tyson Gamble both impressed alongside Jackson Hastings.

Hastings was the best player on the park in the first half as he laid on three try assists – including a chip kick with his left foot for Dylan Lucas – as the Knights overturned an early deficit against a Sharks side missing most of their stars.

The Knights were on fire. Photo by Izhar Khan/Getty Images

The veteran playmaker is virtually assured of the No. 7 jersey next month, with Gamble and Cogger fighting it out to partner him in the halves.

Gamble started on Saturday afternoon but lacked any highlight plays, while Cogger came on after 20 minutes and nailed an early 40/20 to mark his return to the club that handed him his debut in 2016.

He’s had an interesting journey since then and played a big part in Penrith’s grand final comeback, with Cogger pouncing on a kick in the second half to score a well-deserved try.

Adam O’Brien has a big decision to make given Hastings and Gamble took them to the finals last year, but Cogger’s class is hard to ignore.

It’s likely all three will play in Newcastle’s second trial, with a hamstring injury to Jayden Brailey potentially opening the door for one of them to come off the bench when the season starts.

With NCA Newswire