Mature beyond his years: Young gun Brown relishing senior role

Barely out of his teens, Dylan Brown has already proved he can lead an NRL side around the park but he will need to improve even further against the resilient Knights on Sunday.

Brown stepped up with some career-high numbers against North Queensland last Friday in what was his first every NRL game without senior half Mitch Moses.

With Moses sidelined with a calf strain, Brown - who turned 20 last month - stepped into the breach admirably with a career-high 367 kick metres.

That more than doubles the previous record of 160 set a week earlier when Moses was injured mid-game and almost triples his previous high of 136. Brown's three try assists was also a career high.

"We can't wait for [Moses] to be back but until then we just have to fill in and do our best," Brown told NRL.com – although he couldn't resist a cheeky joke that Moses may struggle to get back in the team after the 42-4 win.

He praised the impact of new halves partner Jai Field for his try and eight busts, the leadership of Clint Gutherson and the platform laid by the in-form forward pack.

"That's what Jai does, he runs. Gutho is there, he's a big voice and a big decider in what goes on. We just work together," Brown said.

"You've seen Junior out there offloading so we've got a few halves out there, and wannabe halves!

"With Mitch gone there's pressure there but with the forwards playing like that it takes the pressure off and I'm still enjoying my footy."

Brown's two forced drop-outs was an equal-best for his career to date but two kicks going dead to concede seven-tackle restarts was also a career high.

"I did all right with a few kicks, there were a few dud ones there, it's not my strong point so I'll continue to work on that," he said.

"We're not going to have Mitch for a few more weeks so I'm going to have to take over that role."

His coach Brad Arthur offered measured praise of Brown's performance, though identified the heavy kicks as a key area for improvement.

"Dyl did a really good job, he stepped up," Arthur said.

"That's what we needed from Dylan, just to be Dylan Brown. He was good. He ran the footy, played on both sides of the field, got a couple of kicks wrong but he'll learn from them.

"For our halves, playing off the back of our forward pack who were tremendous, they played their backsides off."