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Sport Nation
Find your Sport Nation frequencyWhy Origin stars need to lift their performance for club sides
Nicholas Quinlan • April 18th, 2025 12:34 pm
Greg Alexander wants to see better performances from Latrell Mitchell and Kalyn Ponga to help give their sides important wins over the week.
While Mitchell had a solid game in his first full game as five-eighth where he notched up two line-break assists, two try assists and 715 kicking meters in their loss to the Cowboys, Alexander wants to see him focus on running the ball as the five-eighth to create attacking chances.
“I thought last week, playing at five-eighth, out of position but he had two runs, he had two try assists,” Alexander noted on SEN 1170’s Breakfast.
“Latrell is most dangerous when you get him inside the 20-metre area.
“The more Latrell runs and we saw that with the try to Jye Gray where he took on the defence, just ran into them and somehow got a miracle ball away.
“Souths need Latrell busy and running with the football.”
Mitchell will have assistance in the halves with the return of Cody Walker to the South Sydney side this week.
Walker will start as the halfback instead of his usual five-eighth position given Mitchell’s move to the number six jersey.
This should take some of the pressure off Mitchell as Walker will likely take the dominant ball-handling role allowing Mitchell to have more runs of the ball.
For Ponga, Alexander is in the belief that he needs to reduce the number of errors he is making to give the Knights more scoring opportunities.
“Points are rare as hen teeth for the Newcastle Knights,” Alexander pointed out.
“They need Kalyn Ponga involved, not making errors like he did last week.”
Considering that the Knights have only managed 46 points for the season which is the lowest amount in the competition with the next best in the Eels being 79 points, a reduction in errors is likely the start to helping solve their scoring woes.
The Rabbitohs will play against the Bulldogs in a blockbuster clash for their annual Good Friday game at Accor Stadium with kick-off at 6pm NZST.
The game is expected to break the attendance record for a regular season match.
The Knights will battle it out against the Sharks in Newcastle on Sunday afternoon.
