After the siren: Shaun Kenny-Dowall

Things looked promising when Shaun Kenny-Dowall got the first try of the evening in Saturday's trial match against the Parramatta Eels at Maitland.

But he experienced outside back was the only Knight to score on Saturday night, as the team went down 26-6 to the visitors.

The 30-year-old admits he was happy to be the first cab off the rank in the match, but wasn’t satisfied with how the result turned out.

“I thought we really made it hard for ourselves and turned over way too much ball,” Kenny-Dowall told Knights TV.

“Parramatta are a top four side and we went away from what we were supposed to do and gave them way too much ball.”

Despite the disappointing loss it’s not the end of the world for the new-look red and blues, who will need to use the next two weeks wisely as they head into their Round 1 clash against the Manly Sea Eagles.

“We’ve still got a couple of weeks to work on a few things,” Kenny-Dowall maintained.

“We’ll go back to training, review the game and really work hard going into Round 1 on things that we need to improve on.

“Two weeks is a long time in rugby league and we’ll be working really hard to get it right at training and bring our focus to our preparation.”