Newcastle Knights premiership-winning coach Michael Hagan concedes Kalyn Ponga has plenty of work to do after Ponga’s team went down to the New Zealand Warriors in Wellington in round one.

Ponga was switched into the halves in the off-season but so far his connection with newcomer Jackson Hastings hasn’t worked yet.

“I thought he handled it pretty well for most of the game. He had two nice nice touches for two try assists, his contact in defence was consistently pretty good,” Hagan wrote on The Roar website.

“But he didn’t probably didn’t run the ball enough. So that’s the balances – you can’t just be a pair of hands and a ball-player as a six. You’ve got to be running the football. 

“So they’re all things that he has to add into his game as he goes on. His kicking game was OK but there were a couple of times where he wasn’t connected on the edge in defence which will take time to understand and develop.”

The Knights play Wests Tigers this Sunday at Leichhardt Oval.