Penrith rout of Knights delights Cleary

Penrith coach Ivan Cleary is confident his new-look side will get better as the season progresses after opening their NRL campaign with a 30-8 win over Newcastle on Saturday.

The Panthers produced an emphatic second-half display at Sportingbet Stadium, scoring 24 unanswered points against a Knights side badly hindered by injuries to hooker Kurt Gidley, fullback Darius Boyd and halfback Tyrone Roberts.

All three were forced out of the game with Knights coach Wayne Bennett fearing Boyd could potentially face up to three weeks on the sidelines after tearing his hamstring in the first half.

Skipper Gidley left the field with concussion at halftime as did Roberts 20 minutes from time leaving the visitors with a makeshift spine for most of the game.

Despite facing patched up opponents, Cleary said he was delighted with the focus shown by his players with new boys Peter Wallace, Elijah Taylor and Jamie Soward all enjoying encouraging debuts.

“The start of the game wasn’t like round one – both teams were pretty accurate,” Cleary said.

“It was really to and fro that first 20 minutes and it took a lot out of everyone. Our attack was a bit clumsy in the first half and that was because the boys were out on their feet a bit.

“But in the second, it was much better and the points seemed to come for us.

“They had some bad luck with injuries … but we are very happy to get through that and get a win.

“It was a good, tough win but we had a few new faces and that is going to take time.”

Two tries from Josh Mansour and four-pointers from Adam Docker and debutants Taylor and Jeremy Latimore sealed the win for the hosts.

But Cleary was bemused by the decision to chalk off a first-half try from Wallace for a pull on Gidley’s shirt in the build-up.

Wallace crossed the line following a Lewis Brown offload but the video referee overruled the on-field officials after footage showed a tug on Gidley by the back-rower.

“That’s been going on since the game started,” Cleary said.

“I thought it was a really tough call to take the try away.”

Bennett admitted there wasn’t much his side could do in the second half with so many players and the interchange bench just down to one body and praised his side’s efforts.

“We had two with concussion, one with a hamstring. These situations happen and you can’t really plan for them,” Bennett said.

“We had guys out of position and it just wasn’t running for us. But I was elated with the effort. They didn’t deserve to get beaten by 30-odd points.”

With key playmaker Jarrod Mullen estimated to be sidelined until about round nine, Bennett is hopeful Boyd’s injury won’t be too serious but is not expecting him to play next week against Canberra at Hunter Stadium.

“Hamstrings are always hard. It could be a week; it could be two or three,” he said.

“It will certainly be more than a week, you would assume. There is a tear in there somewhere.

“With the concussions, Kurt is still not good at the moment and will be touch and go; Tyrone is starting to come good.”