Newcastle Knights coach Adam O'Brien refuses to comment on Mitch Barnett's send-off at Bathurst

Newcastle seemed to be the better of the two teams after half an hour of play, leading 6-4 but with seven minutes before the break, Barnett had a brain explosion.

Penrith's Chris Smith was making a run off the ball, when Barnett lifted his elbow into the chin of the Panthers second rower.

Smith went down and was attended by the team doctor while play went on, but the video referee was ultimately called in to review the decision and Barnett was subsequently given his marching orders.

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Smith failed his HIA test and was removed from the game and replaced by 18th man Lindsay Smith.

When question about the incident at the post-match press conference, O'Brien was unwilling to comment on the incident nor blame his player for the loss.

"I can't talk about it, it's going to the judiciary, we'll leave it," he said.

"What I can tell you what Mitch doesn't need is me kicking him publicly. He's a part of our family and we'll deal with it behind closed doors.

"There's no one feeling any worse than Mitch. We'll just deal with it after the match.

"The angles are hard to see. It took a while to see it, so I haven't had a good look at it but I can't talk about it."

O'Brien also raised his issue with a number of tries where he felt there may have been an obstruction.

"Yeah, there were a few tries with blokes running into the back of refs," he said.

"There was a little bit going on there, so I'll have to have a look at it on the plane on the way home."

Regardless, the Knights put in a brave performance, playing close to fifty minutes down one man.

"I don't think we would've lost too many supporters with our effort there but we've got some lessons to learn," O'Brien admitted.

"I think we played better footy when we got to 12. We were a lot more direct. We were too sideways, too shifty in the first half. It wasn't until we were forced to play north-south that we started to look a bit better."

Queensland representative star Kalyn Ponga was a big out for the Knights on Saturday, but O'Brien said he'll be returning for Newcastle's game against Cronulla Sharks on Friday.

"Yes, it's extremely likely he'll be back," he said on Ponga's potential return.

The loss for Knights was the club's first defeat of the 2022 NRL season, having defeated Sydney Roosters and Wests Tigers in round one and two respectively.

The Knights led the NRL ladder after two rounds heading into the Bathurst match, but has been subsequently jumped by Panthers.

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