Jesse Ramien has assured Newcastle supporters he is going nowhere any time soon.
The 22-year-old tackle-busting centre, who is just seven games into his two-year contract with the Knights, quashed a report on Nine's Wide World of Sports website claiming he wanted to leave the club because he was not seeing enough ball on the right side of the field.
Asked to respond to the report after training with the Knights in Newcastle on Wednesday, Ramien dismissed it outright, telling reporters: "Look, I'm more than happy here."
"I don't know know too much about that, and I don't read too much into media or anything like that, so like I said, I'm more than happy here at the Knights," he said.
"I've only just come and it's still only early days for me here. I'm enjoying my footy … and we've had a rough start to the year but there's plenty of room for improvement."
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One of the main reasons Ramien left Cronulla to join the Knights at the end of last season was to be closer to his five-year-old daughter, LaSharn, and he now lives near her on the Central Coast and travels to Newcastle each day to train and play.
Ramien said the speculation about his future did not bother him but he understood that it caused some angst among Newcastle supporters.
"Obviously rumours have been going around the game for a long time and they're going to contiunue for a long time … but it's all part of it. It's just what comes with our sport," he said.
"It's just a rumour and I'm enjoying my footy here at the moment."
Ramien has scored just one try this season, against Canberra on March 29, but had more opportunities against Parramatta at McDonald Jones Stadium last Sunday.
He made four tackle breaks and ran 10 times for 95 metres, and it took the tackle of the week by Parramatta winger Maika Sivo to deny him his second try for the year.
The Dubbo-born, Indigenous All Stars representative expects those numbers to increase since coach Nathan Brown settled on a spine of Kalyn Ponga, Connor Watson, Mitchell Pearce and Danny Levi, but he also knows he needs to create his own chances.
"I am pretty happy with my form," he said.
"I guess I probably need to get my hands on the ball a bit more but that comes back to myself, and I need to get myself involved in the game more rather than just wait for it to come to me … so there's obviously room for improvement there.
"It was always going to take a bit of time with coming to the new club, new players and building new connections, and the changes to our halves and the spine roles, but once we get that right fit in there, I think things will start to flow a lot easier for us."
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A shoulder injury forced Ramien from the field with seven minutes left in Newcastle's 28-14 victory over the Eels but he said he would play against the New Zealand Warriors in Auckland on Sunday, and did not think he would need a pain-killing injection.
"It's pulled up pretty good," Ramien said.
"Obviously I got a bit of a bump on it on the weekend but I went pretty good out here today at training so hopefully I'll keep building on it during the week.
"It's not as bad as I initially thought and I've pulled up pretty good today."
