On his NRL debut, Joe Wardle put in a solid 41 minutes from the bench to come away with 26 tackles and the Round 4 Player’s Player award for the nib Newcastle Knights.
“The body is all good, I don’t think the lungs were to be honest,” the Englishman joked of his first game down under.
“It was a real quick game.”
While the score line blew out to 40-0 against the Penrith Panthers last Friday, the Knights forward is optimistic of a better result this weekend.
“We let them get a good roll on, we didn’t control the ruck or control their forwards so we were very disappointed with our performance,” Wardle said.
“It’s one thing we’ve had to look at, hopefully we can fix that up for this weekend’s game.”
Coming from the Super League, Wardle noted a number of differences between the English game and the NRL.
“It was a lot quicker, pretty much like touch football,” he commented.
“If you don’t win the first one or two rucks then you have no chance of winning the set.”
Stating that it's hard to judge his own performance given the result, the 25-year-old maintains some personal improvement is needed.
“I thought I did ok.
“There are some areas where I could improve, try and get used to the different style of play.
“I enjoyed being out with the boys, it was a good experience and I hope I can get another shot this week.”
The Knights take on the Cronulla Sharks at Southern Cross Group Stadium this Saturday, with kick off at 3pm.
