The Newcastle Knights will be sweating over the fitness of Fletcher Sharpe after the five-eighth failed to finish the Vegas season opener.

Sharpe suffered a serious looking knee injury in the 26th minute against the Cowboys attempting to make a play in defence.

The five-eighth tried to continue on, but was immediately targeted in defence by the Cowboys, allowing a try to Heilum Luki before being subbed out.

The Knights are confident it isn’t a season-ending ACL injury to Sharpe, however, there are still concerns the injury could rule Sharpe out for at least a third of the season, with scans to confirm.

“Mechanism wise - very innocuous,” the NRL Physio wrote on X in regard to Sharpe’s injury.

“No clear change of direction or deceleration plant of the foot that would bring concern for an ACL injury.

“Often see mystery knee issues like that end up as meniscus tears, though worth noting just before going down Sharpe got tackled knee into ground (typical PCL mechanism).

“If a meniscus tear or PCL sprain recovery (is) usually measured in weeks rather than months, but (there are a) wide range of possible outcomes here.”

Sharpe looked electric to start the match, combining with Kalyn Ponga to score the first try of the season, and looking strong in combination with Dylan Brown.

The Cowboys have their fair share of injury concerns, with Tom Mikaele and Scott Drinkwater spending different periods off the field.

Drinkwater left the field early in the clash with a rib injury, however, was able to return with the help of injections.

Mikaele was only able to get through 10 minutes before leaving the field, with scans to confirm the extent of his injury.

Despite the injury to Sharpe, Justin Holbrook’s era as Knights’ head coach got off to a strong start, defeating the Cowboys 28-18.

Adding Dylan Brown and Holbrook after their wooden spoon campaign, the Knights rose to the occasion, with Brown and Kalyn Ponga the standouts for Newcastle.

“Wooden spooners in 2025, (the Knights) come over to Las Vegas on the back of a new coach, a new halfback, and gosh, he looked good tonight,” SEN’s Chad Townsend said on SEN League.

“He got this team around the park, he kicked the ball well, he ran the ball well, he combined with Kalyn Ponga extremely well.”

SEN’s Tim Mannah agreed Brown was highly impressive in his first game in red-and-blue.

“I thought he really stood up today, Dylan Brown, from early in the game, lots of involvement,” Mannah said.

“We spoke about the fact that he's left Parramatta and had to learn to be the leader of the team.

“We saw what he did with the Kiwis team last year, and this is just the start of a very exciting new chapter for him and the Newcastle Knights.”