Newcastle coach Adam O'Brien will deploy the "big artillery" that missed Friday's loss to Cronulla against Parramatta this week as the Knights aim to improve on an indifferent first showing.
After losing 28-16 to a young and exciting Sharks outfit at Gosford, O'Brien said every available top-flight player who didn't get a run would be used in some capacity this week and he would field a team against the Eels on Friday akin to the one that runs out in the season-opener a fortnight later.
"There's still some big artillery to come back," he said.
"I'm only going to take a smaller group, 22 or 23 [players]. It will be a decent hit out and more of an indication of what we're looking for in round one.
"I'm anticipating good minutes from everyone."
Newcastle started a strong side against the Sharks but 11 players from the club's top-30 roster did not play, including Kalyn Ponga, Tyson Frizell and Dom Young.
The 28-man Knights produced a mixed performance, starting reasonably well in the opening 20 minutes while the big names were on the field but falling away afterwards before a late burst in the final 10 minutes.
New No.7 Jackson Hastings looked comfortable and had a hand in the side's first try, scored by five-eighth Tyson Gamble who brought plenty of his trademark energy.
The duo only played 40 minutes but in bits of play combined well with back-rower Lachlan Fitzgibbon and fullback Bailey Hodgson, who showed his potential in attack but made a couple of regrettable errors.
The Sharks led 16-4 at half-time but Newcastle had gone close to scoring another two or three tries. The contest slowed after the break due to a series of turnovers with the Knights making 17 errors all up and finishing with a 64 per cent completion rate.
"It was a typical trial," O'Brien said. "There was stuff that you wanted to see and stuff that you didn't.
"There were periods there where we showed what we're capable of and what we've shown over the summer, [like] defending four sets in a row.
"The other side of the see-saw was the couple of soft tries.
"There were some lessons learnt for some of our part-time players and our younger guys.
"There's some lessons there about hanging in there, but then there was some examples for the older guys on what it looks like when we are hanging in there and what we are capable of."
Newcastle scored two tries in the final 10 minutes through Phoenix Crossland and young outside-back Luke Pietzner, who impressively ran onto an Adam Clune kick.
O'Brien praised Pietzner, a Sarina product, for his lead-up play and also Ryan Rivett, who spent the final 25 minutes in the halves and kicked two conversions.
"He got us to our kick. The first period of the second half we couldn't get to a kick and a young man like that came on and steadied the ship. I'm really proud of him," he said of Rivett.
"Pietzner deserved the try because of some of the other stuff he'd done."
Prop John Toleafoa's broken arm was the only significant injury from the trial, the Knights said on Sunday.
Newcastle face Parramatta in Gosford again at 5.55pm on Friday.
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