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The idea that Penrith skipper Matt Moylan could be on the way out of the Panthers organisation has the potential to irreversibly damage the club’s revival.
Moylan is the pin-up boy of the Penrith Panthers.
He’s talented, has football nous, is a local, plays a key position on the field, is marketable, sleek, and has model looks.
If you rewind to Phil Gould’s arrival in 2012, you’ll remember the gutting broomstick he put through the club’s roster. You’ll remember the overhaul of the business, the bold statements about being the country’s most recognisable sports brand, and the five-year plan.
Gould’s influence has almost single-handedly turned a floundering franchise into an NRL powerhouse. Just this week, the Panthers put out a statement detailing how every one of their sides had made the finals for only the fourth time in the club’s 50-plus year history. For the second consecutive year.
Almost parallel to the new era was the emergence of Baulkham Hills-born Moylan, who was first off what would turn into a conveyer-belt of NRL players produced from the local Penrith district.
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At fullback, Moylan played in arguably the most important position on the field, outside of the traditional owner of rugby league sides, the halfback.
His talents quickly shone through, while he also began to find his feet in the media, regularly appearing on The Footy Show, and his quick-wit, humour and good looks would have had marketing gurus rubbing their hands together.
He fitted in perfectly to the commercial and operational redesign of the Panthers – so much so, in 2016 he was handed the club’s captaincy.
Without drawing a comparison too wild, Moylan has a tinge of a former Liverpool footballer Steven Gerrard about him. And so does his situation.
Local junior, poster boy, all the talent in the world, the ability to influence others through his own actions. What he hasn’t fully captured yet is the persistence of effort, the resilience.
It’s probably no surprise. But will this be the learning curve Moylan needed, or signal the end of his time at Penrith?
In 2015, Gould made an eerily similar and surprising decision to sack then-coach Ivan Cleary and bring in Anthony Griffin. At the time it was odd and didn’t really make sense.
While the merits of that decision are a debate for another article, Moylan continued his rise under Griffin. He made the New South Wales side, Australian squad, and was instrumental in the club’s run into the finals last season.
All while wearing the captain’s metaphorical armband. So it’s hard to work out where it’s all gone wrong. Indeed, maybe both parties have reasons for wanting a change.
If Moylan is dismayed with his current predicament, maybe a move would be best the best thing for him?
Similarly, maybe the Panthers have realised they don’t have the full deck of cards required to achieve their goal of winning another premiership and see the departure of Moylan as a way of securing what or who they need.
Like the loss of Cleary, perhaps to get where you want to go, you don’t always arrive with those who you thought you would.
But there would be a real sense of disenchantment if Matt Moylan wasn’t involved in completing Penrith’s revival. He’s been at the front of it, at the back of it, and in the thick of it – Chronologically, in a positional sense, and in terms of the operation, respectively.
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