Newcastle Knights will bide their time before considering Kalyn Ponga for selection

Ponga has not played since he was knocked senseless in Newcastle's round-two clash with Wests Tigers on March 12, his fourth bout of concussion in the space of 12 months.

The 25-year-old flew to Canada two weeks ago for state-of-the-art neurological scans and assessment and has received the all-clear to resume his career.

But first he faces an intensive block of conditioning and defensive drills to ensure he is physically prepared for his return to the firing line.

The Knights announced in a statement last week that they hoped Ponga would be available for the round-eight clash with North Queensland in Townsville on April 22, which would have given the Queensland Origin representative two weeks of full-contact training.

But back in 2020, when the NRL was preparing to resume after the COVID-enforced shut-down, O'Brien said it would be "cutting it really fine" if players had any less than three weeks of full-contact training to prepare for a game.

"Once it gets less than that, the duty of care you have to the players starts to become a talking point then," he said at the time.

After Sunday's win against the Warriors, O'Brien indicated the Knights would be flexible with Ponga's return date.

"We'll just go about it over the next few weeks, and then we'll work out if he's right to go," he said. "And if he's not, we'll go another week."

The coach said that Newcastle's high-performance staff and Ponga's medical advisors had "mapped out" a plan to prepare him.

"There's everything from footy contact to the type of tackles that we think he'll experience ... there's a lot of thought gone into it all," O'Brien said. "We've actually started some of it."

Interviewed on the field before Sunday's game, Ponga told the 18,007-strong crowd he expects to return to the field in the near future.

He said the trip to Vancouver had allayed any concerns about his neurological health.

"Four weeks ago there was all that talk about retirement," he said.

"To go over to Canada and get clarity about what I am doing and what I can do, it's reassuring for me.

"I should be back in not too long. I just want to get back on the field, doing what I love with the boys.

"We got the best result I could over there. That was the result I got, that you are able to go back and play ... your brain is in a healthy position to do so. Really reassuring and positive news."

Ponga is rated one of Newcastle's fittest players, but after spending a month on restricted duties he will need some topping up before he is cleared to resume.

"I just have to get some more kilometres in my legs, get match fit and then I will be ready to go," he said.

"When you go through something like that, the amount of support and love and messages I got, I put something out just to say thank you to everyone.

"To have that support from Newcastle and all my family and friends was awesome."

After switching Ponga from fullback to five-eighth in the pre-season, O'Brien faces a dilemma over where to position his marquee player in defence.

A number of high-profile pundits, including Knights coaching consultant Andrew Johns, have suggested Ponga needs to be "protected" and possibly removed from the front line.

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