Last time out against Widnes Vikings saw the Knights produce a memorable display to defeat our Betfred Championship Play-Off rivals 32-6 at the LNER Community Stadium. In the midst of that encounter, Pauli Pauli started at prop and produced arguably his best performance yet in a Knights shirt.
Head Coach James Ford, speaking to the media earlier this week, heralded the forward’s showing and discussed what he expects to see from the powerhouse in future.
“Pauli’s physiology means he is an incredibly explosive player,” Ford explained. “He’s 132 kilos, he’s six foot four or five, he’s ridiculously strong and he’s fast.
“Those attributes make him a real handful but there’s swings and roundabouts.
“What that means is that he isn’t going to run any marathons – and I’m not going to ask him to because I don’t want him to,” he reasoned.
“I want him to start the game and give me ten or fifteen minutes of absolute chaos and give our opponents’ middles a nightmare.
“But then I want to see Ronan Dixon come off the bench and do the same for fifteen minutes before Pauli comes back on.
“Imagine dealing with that for the first thirty minutes, thinking that you’re about to get to half-time, have a sit down and get some instructions off the coach – but then you see that monster coming back on.
“That’s what we want, but we can only do that because we’ve got people like Jordan Thompson who can play eighty minutes in the middle at a breeze and Will Jubb who we’re now getting through to eighty minutes.”
