Newcastle captain Kalyn Ponga expects Anthony Milford to hit his stride in coming weeks after making a handy start against former club Brisbane on Thursday.
Playing his first game since September 4, the five-eighth had some nice touches in the first half of the 36-12 loss and provided a point of difference to Newcastle's attack.
But the 27-year-old, on a season-long contract, struggled to make an impact after halftime with the Knights starting poorly and lacking the energy they had in the opening 40 minutes.
Overall, it was an encouraging albeit rusty return performance by Milford, who showed glimpses of why the Broncos once paid him about $1 million per year.
"He is pretty quiet in nature around the joint, but on the field he is quite vocal and I think he is only going to grow," Ponga, who combined with Milford on a couple of occasions, said.
"He will start to get more confident, which is what we need. I thought he looked good out there.
"He'd like some touches back, but we all would.
"It was awesome to be out there with him to be honest."
Milford recorded 15 runs, four tackle breaks and a line-break assist. He missed five tackles but placed 12 kicks, including a few aimed for back-rower Tyson Frizell that were threatening plays.
Frizell, one of Newcastle's best playing with a level of desperation few others had, hopes to build on his combination with Milford.
"It's still early days. It's only the first week that I've been able to have a full training session with him," he said.
"I haven't been able to train for the past two-and-a-half weeks, so that's a combination that's obviously going to take time to gel, but for his first game back in almost a year or so ... I think he held his own and played well."
Knights coach Adam O'Brien thought Milford's second-half performance relfected that of the team.
"I thought he had some really good touches early, it was like 'oh hang on, this is going to be a fun night'," O'Brien said. "I reckon that was a reflection of the whole team. He'd like some stuff back again in the second half [and] us as a team - we'd like some stuff back again."
The dissapointing loss, Newcastle's eighth in 11 games this season, left the Knights languisihing in at least 15th and with some soul-searching to do before an away game against the Warriors in Redcliffe.
O'Brien was baffled by the controversial obstruction call that allowed Brisbane to take an eight-point lead in the 69th minute.
Newcastle trailed 14-12 when Broncos winger Selwyn Cobbo finished off the long-range effort, but replays showed Knights half Adam Clune had been obstructed in the lead-up play.
Broncos fullback Te Maire Martin appeared to have run behind Jordan Riki before passing the ball with Clune unable to make a tackle, but the Bunker deemed Martin had passed before going behind his teammate.
The decision allowed Brisbane to move ahead 20-12 and they went on to score a further three tries.
"If it happens on the 10-metre line or on the try-line, the rule should be the same all the way down the field in my opinion ... I don't get it, I don't understand it," O'Brien said of the ruling.
He refused to use the decision as an excuse, instead lamenting his side's late collapse.
"That scoreline at the end there, it's inexcusable," O'Brien said. "I get that took a bit of wind out of the sails there ... but there's stuff we need to be better at."
With the likes of Frizell and Dane Gagai back in the side, Newcastle were far more threatening in the first half than in recent weeks but struggled to capitalise on a string of penalties. Seven errors didn't help, nor did another controversial call by the Bunker to deny Dane Gagai a try before the break.
But the Broncos made three easy line-breaks returning kicks early in the second half to get on the front and build pressure in what was another poor start by O'Brien's team.
"The line-breaks on the kick-chase line, we've been reasonably good at that and I hadn't seen that coming," O'Brien said.
"We trained the hell out of it all week, as we do most weeks.
"But to see that, we've got work to do."
