Two second-half tries from half Moses Mbye enabled Des Hasler’s Bulldogs to escape from Pepper Stadium with their second away win in as many starts.
Debutant Kerrod Holland potted the conversion after the siren to seal an 18-16 victory.
The loss is a heart-breaking one for Penrith, who kicked off their season-long celebrations by paying homage to the remaining founding fathers from that first game ever played by the Panthers in 1967, ironically against the Bulldogs. They wore modified replicas of the original jersey worn back then.
Coach Anthony Griffin said after the game it was an improved showing by Penrith on last Saturday’s efforts in the wilting heat of Canberra that enabled them to lead for all but virtually 20 seconds of the game, but a plethora of missed tackles throughout the second half proved costly.
“Two weeks now we’ve been one play away [from winning] and tonight we probably did enough to win but we didn’t,” Griffin stated.
“I was impressed with our attitude for the whole 80 minutes and we’re building performances as a team.
“It’s heart-breaking we got beat at the death but as a team we’re getting a little bit better each week and learning the lessons we need to learn.
“I can’t wrap us enough regarding our effort and the way we are going about things.”
Penrith welcomed back Dean Whare (calf) into the side at the expense of Will Smith, which saw Waqa Blake move to the wing and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak play fullback.
In the forwards, Griffin surprisingly demoted last week’s debutant forward James Fisher-Harris for another club debutant, Sitaleki Akauola.
Griffin also shifted skipper Peter Wallace to hooker despite naming Tyrone Peachey to start in that position and said that he thought the move was a success, despite the result before adding that the decision was made early in the week.
“Wallace was picked to be hooker at our first training session earlier in the week,” Griffin said.
“We didn’t have a hooker with both our hookers injured and I thought for the team with Peter and his experience in there [that position], picking the ball up first and Jamie playing behind him worked really well.
“I thought Peter did a great job and gave us really good control.”
Both sides were hamstrung by injuries throughout the game including Dean Whare who suffered a likely re-occurrence of his calf injury during the second half, while Canterbury lost Aiden Tolman (concussion) during the first half.
Whare’s likely calf injury is another blow for a Panthers side still reeling from missing Matt Moylan and James Segeyaro just two rounds into the season.
The Panthers sprinted out of the blocks to lead the Bulldogs 12-0 after 11 minutes with tries to centre Peta Hiku (his second in as many matches) and prop Sam McKendry, whose barging effort from close range was his first try since Round 3, 2013 versus Souths.
The try was a fitting reward for the Kiwi international prop who some felt was lucky to retain his spot in the side after his minimal contribution in the Canberra game.
McKendry proved his detractors wrong, producing a much-improved performance that yielded 132 metres from 14 runs, a line-break, two tackle breaks and 28 tackles to go with his try.
“I was pretty happy that I scored,” McKendry said.
“They don’t come often and hopefully there’s many more to come this year. I ripped in and had a real go tonight.”
A penalty goal midway through the first half stretched the lead to 14 points before Sam Kasiano’s vision put Mbye into a gap from halfway. In turn, Moses found replacement fullback Will Hopoate to score next to the posts and reducing the gap to 14-6.
Penrith applied plenty of pressure early in the second half, being camped on Canterbury’s try line for several sets before opting to take the two points from in front to stretch the lead from eight to ten points. It was a decision that left many baffled and ultimately played a part in Penrith’s demise on the siren but according to Griffin, Penrith lost on the back of worse decisions that that.
“We got beat on a couple of decisions other than that and I don’t want to go into all of them but with a minute and a half to go we would have won the game if we could have defended that last set,” Griffin said.
“It was a really strong performance but a terrible loss to have and we’ll learn from that and be better for it.”
Minutes later the bunker’s decision to correctly overrule the on-field try decision to Josh Mansour, ruling the winger was accidently offside in the in-goal after the ball came off Hiku’s head, proved pivotal. A Josh Reynolds line-break soon after provided the catalyst for Mbye to score his first try after play shifted left where the half cut back inside to score from close range to reduce the gap to four points.
From there Penrith lost their way in attempting to regain scoreboard ascendancy on the back of some poor last tackle options in the last 20 minutes. Their defence started to look fatigued and they missed 20 of their 30 missed tackles in the second half.
“No, I thought we were pretty sharp out there [during that second half],” McKendry explained.
“We just clocked off in that last minute that’s all it was.
“Concentration let us down in the end.”
A Jamie Soward grubber that went dead and gifted the Bulldogs a 20-metre restart with seven tackles proved to be Penrith’s undoing. Mbye took advantage of some disjointed defence on Penrith’s right edge to level the scores before Holland nailed the angled conversion.
Despite the nature of the loss, Wallace said that it was a big improvement on the Canberra game, especially when in possession.
“It was a big improvement on last week [where] I thought we were way off in that game,” Wallace exclaimed.
“But tonight I thought we were really good and we’ll take a lot out of it and obviously we have to be good next week [against the Broncos].”
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