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Kalyn Ponga has breathed a sigh of relief after bouncing back to form and guiding Newcastle to a 46-26 win over Gold Coast that thrusts him into State of Origin contention and silences critics of the Knights' bye-week holidays.

Parramatta bullied Ponga in his first full game at five-eighth two weeks ago, raising serious concerns about the ex-fullback's ability to take on the extra workload of his new position.

But while his teammates shipped out to Bali, Fiji, New Zealand and beyond during Newcastle's round-10 break - copping plenty of flak from the media - Ponga spent the bye training to prove he could return to his best after his recent concussion problems.

The extra reps paid off in a big way at McDonald Jones Stadium, with Ponga enjoying his best game for the Knights in recent memory and showing he has the makings of a star five-eighth.

"It was way too premature for people to comment given the sample size this year," Knights coach Adam O'Brien said of criticism levelled at Ponga's positional switch.

"When he hit the go-button in the second half for us, he showed he's elite."

The Titans had the better of a scrappy opening half but Ponga put the Knights on level terms at the break when he threaded a grubber kick through the line for Tyson Frizell.

The 25-year-old lifted his intensity in the second half, first sending former Titan Greg Marzhew over with a cut-out pass and then scything past Tanah Boyd and Jojo Fifita on a line break that set up Bradman Best.

Ponga burst down the left flank on another line break only three minutes later and then dummied past Jayden Campbell to score a try of his own.

By that point, Newcastle were well and truly on their way to a win that will allow their five-eighth to sleep easy on Sunday night.

"To be honest it is (a relief)," Ponga said.

"It hasn't been all sunshine and roses the last eight months.

"To come back home and put in a performance like that in front of the crowd I haven't played in front of for a long time ... I am happy.

"I need to back it up and be consistent. That's something that I need to do for the rest of the year and probably something I haven't done for a couple of years now."

Ponga's performance would not have gone unnoticed by Queensland coach Billy Slater, who is set to pick either the Knights star or Brisbane's Reece Walsh to play fullback in Origin 1.

"It's a prestigious honour to represent Queensland," Ponga said.

"But I can't worry about selection. I want to worry about my performances (for the Knights)."

Best shrugged off criticism of his bye-week trip to Bali by pouncing on a Titans error in the in-goal to grab his second try in the final five minutes.

Titans second-rower David Fifita was the best of a beaten bunch, scoring two tries to push an Origin case that is fast becoming irresistible.

He crashed past Frizell and Lachie Miller to open the Titans' account and then gave Gold Coast a late sniff by belting away on a 95-metre line break to clinch a sixth career double.

But it was too little, too late for the Titans, who rued taking poor fifth-tackle options when they had the ascendancy early.

"We just made too many errors," Titans coach Justin Holbrook said.

"We've had a couple of good wins and we needed to stand up and deliver again today and we just weren't good enough."

© AAP 2023

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Sweden's Loreen has won Eurovision 2023 with the song Tattoo, becoming the first woman to triumph twice in the contest.

Finland's Kaarija, a green-bolero-sleeved rapper, came second in Liverpool, northern England, on Saturday.

He won the viewer vote with Cha Cha Cha, but it was not enough to overtake Loreen's lead after the result from the juries in the 37 participating countries.

Australia finished a creditable ninth with rockers Voyager's performance of Promise.

"I am seriously overwhelmed," Loreen told reporters.

Comparing her win to 2012, she said: "It's like coming back to a family."

Loreen is the only person after Ireland's Johnny Logan to win the contest twice, and her victory puts Sweden level with Ireland as the most successful Eurovision countries, 49 years after Abba's famous victory.

The 67th edition of the musical festival was held in the "City of Pop" on behalf of Ukraine, last year's winner, which was unable to host this year because of Russia's invasion.

Organisers had to walk a tightrope between putting Ukraine centre stage and steering clear of any overt political messages, which are not allowed in the contest.

They largely succeeded.

Kalush Orchestra, 2022's winner, mixed video recorded in Ukraine with live performance in Liverpool in an opening sequence that included a cameo appearance from Britain's Kate, Princess of Wales, playing the piano.

But as the contest was underway, Russian missiles hit the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, home to electro-pop duo Tvorchi, this year's entry from the country.

Local authorities, writing on Telegram, said the strike had injured two people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was barred from addressing worldwide viewers - who numbered 160 million last year - by contest organiser the European Broadcasting Union.

It said that granting his request, which was made with "laudable intentions", would be against the non-political nature of the event and its rules prohibiting making political statements.

Nonetheless, the show, watched by thousands in person on the banks of the River Mersey and by millions on TV, was infused with the spirit of Ukraine, notably in a rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone jointly sung in the arena and in Ukraine and which brought many in the audience to tears.

The 26 acts in the final spanned musical styles from ballads to heavy rock to rap, and included a handful of bizarre performances that the contest is renowned for.

Under spring sunshine, fans flocked in their thousands to city's dockside area near the contest venue ahead of the contest. Many were draped in flags or dressed as their favourite acts.

"Just to come down and see people from all different nationalities, all different cultures - it's good fun," said Australia fan Martin Troedel, sporting a kangaroo on his hat.

"Frankly there's some quite odd acts, which is what I love about it. You never know what to expect."

Germany finished bottom of the table, just behind Britain, but no country received the dreaded "nul points".

Founded in 1956, Eurovision is a European cultural institution that has produced breakout stars - ABBA and Celine Dion are past winners - alongside performers whose careers sank without a trace.

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Swedish singer Loreen has won the Eurovision Song Contest with her power ballad Tattoo, at a colourful, eclectic music competition clouded for a second straight year by the war in Ukraine.

The diva from Stockholm beat acts from 25 other countries to take the continent's pop crown at the competition in Liverpool. Finnish singer Kaarija was second in a close-fought battle of the Nordic neighbors.

Australia finished as creditable ninth with rockers Voyager's performance of Promise.

Loreen previously won Eurovision in 2012 and is only the second performer to take the prize twice, after Ireland's Johnny Logan in the 1980s.

Britain hosted Eurovision this year on behalf of Ukraine, which won last year but couldn't take up its right to hold the contest because of the war. Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine as the contest was underway.

Under the slogan "united by music", Eurovision final fused the soul of English port city that birthed The Beatles with the spirit of war-battered Ukraine.

The sights and sounds of Ukraine ran through the show, starting with an opening film that showed 2022 Eurovision winners Kalush Orchestra singing and dancing in the Kyiv subway, with the tune picked up by musicians in the UK - including Kate, Princess of Wales, shown playing the piano.

The folk-rap band itself then emerged onstage in the Liverpool Arena on a giant pair of outstretched hands, accompanied by massed drummers.

Contestants from the 26 finalist nations entered the arena in an Olympics-style flag parade, accompanied by live performances from Ukrainian acts including Go A, Jamala, Tina Karol and Verka Serduchka - all past Eurovision competitors.

Now in its 67th year, Eurovision bills itself as the world's biggest music contest - an Olympiad of party-friendly pop.

Competitors each have three minutes to meld catchy tunes and eye-popping spectacle into performances capable of winning the hearts of millions of viewers.

Rock was unusually well represented this year at a contest that tends to favour perky pop.

Australia's Voyager evoked head-banging 80s stadium rock on Promise, while Slovenia's Joker Out, Germany's Lord of the Lost were also guitar-crunching entries.

An offbeat contender was anti-war rock opera Mama SC! by Croatia's Let 3, who mock militarist dictators amid Monty Pythonesque imagery before stripping down to their underpants onstage.

While votes were cast and counted, Sam Ryder, last year's runner-up for Britain, performed his new single Mountain, accompanied by Queen drummer Roger Taylor.

A Liverpool Songbook segment featured past Eurovision stars performing songs from the city, including John Lennon's Imagine, You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) by Dead or Alive and the unofficial civic anthem You'll Never Walk Alone - with the audience joining in, as a tribute to both Liverpool and Ukraine.

About 6000 fans watched the show inside the arena, and tens of thousands more at a Liverpool fan zone and at big-screen events across the UK. The global television audience has been estimated at 160 million.

Under spring sunshine, fans flocked in their thousands to city's dockside area near the contest venue ahead of the contest. Many were draped in flags or dressed as their favourite acts.

"Just to come down and see people from all different nationalities, all different cultures - it's good fun," said Australia fan Martin Troedel, sporting a kangaroo on his hat.

"Frankly there's some quite odd acts, which is what I love about it. You never know what to expect."

Founded in 1956, Eurovision is a European cultural institution that has produced breakout stars - ABBA and Celine Dion are past winners - alongside performers whose careers sank without a trace.

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Australia has long been seeing red over punitive trade restrictions imposed by China, but there are positive signs Beijing will give the green light for lucrative imports to begin again.

Trade Minister Don Farrell is returning from a trip to China, where he met with his counterpart Wang Wentao and major steel producer Baowu.

Senator Farrell said he didn't go into the meeting with set expectations after previous visits to China from the assistant trade minister and foreign minister.

"I'm hoping that what we get out of this meeting is a way through in respect of all of the outstanding disputes," he told AAP.

"We're not going to solve all of these issues overnight. This is a way of us signifying to them we're serious about these issues, we want to solve them."

A slate of trade restrictions and embargoes were slapped on Australian goods at the start of 2020 after then-prime minister Scott Morrison called for an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, angering Beijing.

Since coming to power, Labor has been working to restore the relationship with China.

Mr Wang first extended an invitation for Senator Farrell to visit when the pair met virtually in February.

Assistant minister Tim Ayres travelled to China in the interim, but the trade minister said he didn't want to let too much time pass before visiting the Asian economic powerhouse in person.

"The virtual meeting turned out to be quite warm and friendly, but it's not the same as being in the same room," Senator Farrell said.

"You've got to build that relationship. The best way to do it is a face-to-face meeting so he gets a sense of who I am, I get a sense of who he is and we can rebuild that trust."

Top steelmaker Baowu was one of the first of the country's producers to order Australian coking coal in January following Foreign Minister Penny Wong's visit to China in late December.

The Australian government then approved Baowu's involvement in a $2 billion iron ore project with Rio Tinto in Western Australia in what Chinese government mouthpiece The Global Times called "a positive signal for mending the two countries' past fraught relationship".

Baowu chairman Chen Derong has publicly expressed interest in closer ties with Rio Tinto.

The improvement in the two countries' relationship extends back to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in November.

That paved the way for the foreign ministers to meet in Beijing the following month, where it was agreed trade ministers would try to negotiate a path forward.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has also met his counterpart on a number of occasions.

Coal imports into China have resumed on a near-daily basis and there is added interest in Australian copper and cotton.

The next big step is reopening barley imports, which have been at the centre of a World Trade Organisation dispute that was recently paused as a sign of goodwill.

The government is also pushing to strip back trade barriers for Australian wine, meat and crayfish.

Opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan has welcomed the thawing in the relationship, but he said part of the shift came from a change in Chinese diplomacy and a realisation of the domestic costs of Beijing's stance.

"We saw what they termed their 'wolf-warrior diplomacy' a number of years ago," he said.

"We always wanted to continue trading with them. We always wanted to continue having dialogue with them."

Mr Hogan referred to Beijing's issuing of 14 "grievances" to the former coalition government in late 2020, which including what China said was the blocking of its firms' investments on "opaque national security grounds".

The list also accused Australia of "spearheading the crusade against China in certain multilateral forums".

Mr Hogan said Beijing had worked out that the punitive measures could hurt both sides.

"We have a good trading relationship with China. Even through this whole period, they have taken more than 30 per cent of our goods and services," he said.

"The tariffs and other barriers they put on us were illegal and I hope they maybe say, 'look, that wasn't a good idea'."

© AAP 2023