Penrith aren’t doing their new coach Anthony Griffin any favours. They have racked up yet another last-gasp loss, this time at the hands of St George Illawarra 14-12.
The game was for large periods a dour struggle played out in front of 12,983 fans on a gloomy Easter Sunday in Wollongong.
Having already suffered similar losses to Canterbury and Canberra, the Panthers already missing Matt Moylan, James Segeyaro and Dean Whare, are licking their wounds once more with Bryce Cartwright (thumb) and Will Smith (concussion) failing to finish the game while Sam McKendry (knee) battled on gamely.
The Panthers may also find themselves in hot water with the NRL with suggestions skipper Peter Wallace, despite subsequent denials, may have been concussed late in the game and failed to leave the field of play.
Once again it’s that lack of composure at key moments in both attack and defence that has cost Penrith more precious competition points.
Panthers coach Anthony Griffin stated his side “shot themselves in the foot all day” the entire game considering Penrith made 12 errors, conceded 10 penalties in the first half hour and missed 50 tackles across the game.
“I just felt like we never got on the right leg in attack the whole day,” Griffin lamented.
“I just thought we made some really poor decisions with the ball, particularly coming out of our own end.”
“In both halves we looked like we were going to start getting on top but we just come up with a couple of silly errors and were trying to find an offload that wasn’t there.”
“We were trying to do too much with the ball and it cost us in the end.”
Griffin was able to find some positives, particularly with his side’s ability to get back into the game despite the errors.
“Obviously there was a mountain of effort going on there, our effort just kept getting us back into the game,” Griffin said.
“We were turning up for each other defensively.”
“I thought we did an outstanding job to get to the position we were in, considering the work we made ourselves do in defence.”
“The positive is in general we’ve got a really tough football team that’s competing every week.”
“We just need to be smarter about what we’re doing.”
Despite the exciting finish to the match, it was definitely a game of two halves.
The first half to be kind, was a dour struggle at best, with the home side leading 2-0 at the break after a frustrating opening 40 minutes for both teams punctuated with penalties, errors and missed opportunities.
The Dragons were firstly unlucky then unable to extend that lead beyond the 11th minute penalty goal to Gareth Widdop.
In the eighth minute, the Bunker technically overruled Ashley Klein’s on-field decision to award a runaway 65m try to Jason Nightingale after the winger stole the footy a microsecond after Tim Lafai made the barest of contact with ball-carrier Waqa Blake, thus ruled as a two-man strip.
A whopping ten penalties conceded by the Panthers before the half-hour mark, was not capitalised upon by the Dragons, failing to add to their two-point advantage despite being camped on Penrith’s try line for nine of ten sets at one point.
With Bryce Cartwright succumbing to a dislocated thumb at halftime, it seemed like neither side would score further points, until Jamie Soward’s penalty goal two minutes after halftime.
But it was St George Illawarra who finally broke the drought with a 53rd minute try to centre Euan Aitken, who scored after running an inside line off a pass from halfback Josh McCrone, brushing off poor attempted tackles from Tyrone Peachey and Jamie Soward in the process.
From there the game came to life with former crowd favourite, Trent Merrin sparking a Penrith resurgence.
Merrin, who ran more metres than any other forward in the game with 139 metres from 17 hit-ups, despite being greeted by loud boos with each carry, silenced the Dragons faithful on the hour mark.
The Ex-Dragon made a telling bust up the middle before finding Tyrone Peachey in
support before combining with James Fisher-Harris to send Peta Hiku over for his fourth try in as many games to level the scores.
With ten minutes remaining, Will Smith joined Cartwright on the side-lines after Joel Thompson was placed on report for a shoulder charge.
The ensuing penalty enabled Penrith halfback Jamie Soward to find some open space, getting outside his opposite, McCrone before sending winger Josh Mansour over in the left corner to put Penrith in front for the first time in the match 12-8 three minutes later.
Soward missed the conversion from the sideline but given the lack of Dragons attack, the four-point margin looked likely.
Enter Josh Dugan and Gareth Widdop.
The latter, produced the first of two telling kicks, finding touch from the ensuing kickoff, after the ball went over the head of Merrin.
Widdop then on the last tackle, threw the long ball to man-of-the-match Dugan to storm through the attempted tackles of Soward and Hiku and stretch out to plant the ball on the line to level the scores.
The Englishman then produced his second and most telling kick of the afternoon to put the Dragons back in front 14-12 with three minutes remaining.
For Griffin, it was a play that was another example of the lack of attention to detail his side showed at that moment in the game.
“We have to be better at taking care of that,” Griffin stated.
“You leave yourself open to those things in the end if the opposition is still in range.”
Penrith had one last attempt to snatch victory after Mike Cooper was placed on report for a crusher tackle on Mansour, but the Dragons crushed the visitors’ hopes after Will Matthews intercepted a flying pass from Blake.
St George Illawarra 14 (E Aitken J Dugan tries G Widdop 3 goals) beat Penrith 12 (P Hiku J Mansour tries J Soward 2 goals) at WIN Stadium. Referee: Ashley Klein, Adam Gee. Crowd: 12,983. Halftime: St. George Illawarra 2-0. Goals: Gareth Widdop (St George Illawarra) 3 from 3, Jamie Soward (Penrith) 2 from 3.
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