{"id":135377,"date":"2021-09-27T12:50:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T12:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=135377"},"modified":"2021-09-27T15:01:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T15:01:01","slug":"johns-urges-knights-to-hand-ponga-captaincy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=135377","title":{"rendered":"Johns urges Knights to hand Ponga captaincy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knights icon Andrew Johns<\/a> says it is time for his beloved side to make Kalyn Ponga<\/a> the club's full-time captain, urging Newcastle to ditch its "leadership group".<\/p>\n

Newcastle opted for co-captains this season, with Daniel Saifiti and Jayden Brailey sharing the role after Mitchell Pearce's sudden resignation in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Benji Marshall sets incredible grand final record<\/a><\/p>\n

Saifiti and Brailey were joined by three teammates: Ponga, Mitch Barnett and Blake Green to form a five-man "leadership group".<\/p>\n

Johns, a two-time premiership winner with Newcastle, said it was time for the Knights to make their best player the club's sole captain.<\/p>\n

\"Kalyn<\/p>\n

"For me, Kalyn's the captain," he told Wide World of Sports. "He's the most high-profile guy."<\/p>\n

"I understand this year in meetings he was a lot more vocal. He's marketable for the club, nine out of 10 kids say Kalyn's their favourite Knights player, so moving forward he should captain."<\/p>\n

Johns also urged the club to ditch its "leadership group", suggesting that it can lead to confusion and mixed messaging at times.<\/p>\n

"I'm old-school. I want one coach [and] I want one message from the coach," he said. "I don't need three or four coaches telling me what to do."<\/p>\n

\"Kalyn<\/p>\n

"One coach giving a simple message of what I have to do. And I need one captain leading the team.<\/p>\n

"I understand it's come [in] over the past couple of years, I think it's originally from the AFL, but at the end of the day the coach is the boss, what he decides is gospel [and] you've got to follow it, and he needs to be backed up by his captain.<\/p>\n

"You don't need a group of five or six players talking absolute s–t in a room trying to justify the coach's decision, the coach is the one with his head on the line under pressure.<\/p>\n

"The coach's decision, whether it's right or wrong, is in concrete and you have to follow it."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Knights icon Andrew Johns says it is time for his beloved side to make Kalyn Ponga the club's full-time captain, urging Newcastle to ditch its […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135379,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135377\/revisions\/135379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}