Knights coach Adam O'Brien is not expecting rookie halfback Phoenix Crossland to re-invent the wheel against the Raiders in Wagga on Saturday.
But he is confident the 20-year-old will hold his gloves up in defence, play tough, kick well and stick to a simple game plan.
"And provided the players around him do their jobs, that's all I'm going to need from him," O'Brien told the Newcastle Herald.
"What I would say about Phoenix is the pressure is not on him to get the result for us. It's on the guys already in there that were part of what happened last week to do that.
"We've got a young bloke playing his first game in the No.7 jumper in the NRL so you'd like to think his teammates will want to ensure it's a memorable game for him."
O'Brien expects the criticism the club has faced this week in response to losing five of their past six games and the dismal effort against the Sydney Roosters last weekend to ignite a response against Canberra.
"Everyone is questioning our desire and hunger and toughness so that's exactly what we need to respond to," he said.
"I expect us to perform and we need to be excited about the opportunity to go to Wagga and redeem ourselves.
"Something I've stressed to the players is that we have handled ourselves really well under adversity in the past. If you look at the Penrith game last year, the Manly game last year, we've come from behind to win games late this year - we haven't lost that ability to knuckle down and scrap and fight hard.
You'd like to think his teammates will want to ensure it's a memorable game for him.
Adam O'Brien on Phoenix Crossland
"We've done it before so it's a matter of focusing on it and showing it again."
The Knights and Raiders go into the game facing remarkably similar pressures.
Both sides have underachieved so far this season, winning just three of their nines games and both have lost five of their past six.
But while the Raiders showed some encouraging signs of coming out of their slump in a last-start loss to South Sydney, the Knights are coming off one of their worst performances under O'Brien against the Roosters last weekend.
It was expected the coach would react by wielding the axe this week but the majority of the squad was granted a stay of proceedings, pending their response in Wagga.
Centre Enari Tuala is one player under plenty of pressure to hold his spot while bench props Jacob Saifiti and Jesse Sue are both pushing hard for starting berths.
Back-rower Lachlan Fitzgibbon is likely to be in the 17 come kick-off time and could even start as part of a back-row shuffle.
The Knights face a real testing period on the road for the next three weeks.
