If you thought Jesse Ramien would be lining up inside Edrick Lee for the nib Newcastle Knights this season, you thought wrong.
Shaun Kenny-Dowall has been training outside the former Cronulla Shark, spending the pre-season working on the partnership.
"I've been doing a lot of work with Jesse Ramien," Kenny-Dowall said.
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"He's obviously a great talent. I've been working on combinations with him. It's untried at the moment. We're really looking forward to testing that throughout the pre-season."
The pair won't have to wait long before they can put their practise into action.
The Knights have two trial games set with the first against St George Illawarra in Kogarah on February 23 before hosting Cronulla in Maitland a fortnight later.
"They're two top eight teams," he said.
"They were very competitive last year and will be a good yardstick to see where we're at."
Having joined the Knights in 2017, Kenny-Dowall is yet to play finals football in the red and blue.
While the former Kiwi international thinks 2018 "was a step in the right direction", the team is focused on making big strides in 2019.
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To become a finals contender, Kenny Dowall said "there's a lot of different areas" for the team to perfect.
"We've really got to gel as a team," he explained.
"Obviously there's a lot of new faces. A key area we have to work on from last year is our defence, so we need to knuckle down and obviously stop a lot more tries than we did last year."
