After arriving at the Knights last year, Hastings braved the pain barrier in 22 games, playing with a fracture that was not diagnosed until he re-broke the ankle in Newcastle's win against Canberra during last season's finals series.

Having initially broken his ankle playing for Wests Tigers in 2022, the 28-year-old said "it didn't heal properly", despite undergoing surgery and many hours of physio.

"I was just playing with a broken ankle all last year," Hastings told the Newcastle Herald. "The plate held it together because the tightrope surgery failed. I was just managing it because I didn't know any better."

Hastings said his ankle had "suffered a fair bit of damage - there's some arthritis in there too", which limited his ability to resume full training until late in the pre-season.

But the truncated preparation did not appear to hinder him during Newcastle's season-opening 28-12 loss to Canberra last week. In a convincing all-round performance, Hastings made 97 attacking metres, 30 tackles, kicked the ball 195 metres and scored a late try.

"Fortunately it feels miles better than last time," he said.

"I've lost a bit of weight, I'm hitting way higher speeds at training and I haven't missed a session."

Knights coach Adam O'Brien has repeatedly hailed Hastings' commitment to the recovery-and-rehabilitation process, saying the half has left no stone unturned,

"I haven't really had a break," Hastings said.

"I've just been in there doing my physio and training.

"Obviously the boys had two months start on me.

"I was just sitting on an assault bike and stuff like that.

"But I felt pretty good out there [against the Raiders]. I felt fit and like I was moving well.

"Probably a month or so, I'll be at peak fitness, but I'm doing everything I can each day to make sure I'm 100 per cent to play."

Hastings admitted Newcastle paid a price for their lack of ball security against Canberra but felt they were better than the final scoreline may have indicated.

He remains confident they can bounce back in tropical Townsville on Saturday night against North Queensland Cowboys, who are coming off a big round-one win against the Dolphins.

"We've got to complete and play our game, but I think we can take a bit of confidence out of our defence," Hastings said of last week's defeat. "It was just little individual errors and that gave them a lot of field position.

"They scored three last-tackle tries, so it's not like they pulled us apart with good shape or anything like that."