Lamb will play at five-eighth in this weekend’s Auckland Nines competition sharing the halves duties with Jaelen Feeney.

Feeney, Jack Cogger and Will Pearsal are in the halves mix, but Lamb is front-runner to start the season with Hodkinson who was the one constant in last year’s set-up.

“It would be good to strike a combination up with one of the young guys, and obviously young Brock has had a great pre-season,” Hodkinson who has opted out of playing in Auckland said this week on a visit to Morpeth Public School for the NRL Community Carnival. 

“Jaelen, Jack, Will – there’s a lot of young guys who have really put in over the pre-season.

“Last year I think I had five different halves partners because of injuries and suspensions, so it was hard to strike some combinations together.

“It’s been a long pre-season, there’s been a lot of combinations worked on, so there’s been some positive things to come out of it.”

Hodkinson said he continued to be impressed by the work ethic of Lamb and the other youngsters on the Knights list.

“Brock as well as the other halves have been training very well. Brock’s put on a lot of size. For a young guy, he has just turned 20 the other day, it’s important to be physically prepared,” he said.

“He’s been training the house down. He has improved physically and will be far better from the experience he had last year.”

Hodkinson said the step up to NRL from NSW Cup and the under-20 competition was massive, but Lamb had handled himself very well.

“I thought he had a great first season. He is only going to get better from that experience.

“Brock’s quite a confident young man, he slotted straight into his role on field and took the reins.

“He is a cheeky bugger as all good halves and five-eights are. He really rips in. Off the field he is a character and joker but when it’s time to train and play he switches on.”

Hodkinson said he was pleased with how the team had dealt with the news of Brad Mullen’s positive drug test and the loss of key players. 

“It hasn’t distracted us too much. We had that week there, other than that the boys have handled it well and continued to train hard and work hard,” he said.

“The whole pre-season has been tough physically and mentally I’d say as well, but it’s been very positive.”

As for the summer training regime,  Hodkinson said it was probably the hottest pre-season he can remember.

“Pre-season is always hard, but this has to be close to the hottest one I’ve done. Consistently hot,” he said.