Taylor the real deal as injuries prove costly for Penrith

In 2016, Penrith have suffered some fairly agonising losses in the last ten minutes.

But today despite opening up a slender lead, the Panthers found a new way to lose a game, by imploding with two costly errors of their own, both resulting in tries that enabled the never-say-die Titans to leave Pepper Stadium with a 28-24 victory.

Despite leading almost every key game statistics, the Panthers could never kick away at any stage from a Gold Coast side that went try for try with the home side, before those two late back-to-back tries sealed the win for the Titans.

Titans halfback Ashley Taylor recovered from a nasty gash to the head in the first
half and the loss of his halves partner Tyrone Roberts (cork – quad) early in the second, to produce a best on-ground performance to steer the Gold Coast to victory.

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In an frantic final ten minutes, Taylor put up the spiralling kick that forced a fumble from Matt Moylan, scored and converted his own try to level the scores from the next set before swooping on Peachey’s gaffe, turning defence into attack before Don scored the match-winner in the next play, much to the bewilderment of the 11,210 mostly pro-Penrith crowd.

While Peachey’s 77th minute brain-snap in reaching down to put a hand on the loose ball instead of diving on it paved the way for Don’s try, the Panthers lacked composure in setting up for the field goal. An under-pressure Peter Wallace on just the third tackle, abandoned plans to take the shot, opting instead to pass the ball wide.

The error capped a largely indifferent performance from Penrith’s troupe of Origin hopefuls that leaves their ambitions hanging in the balance, with the NSW side to be announced tomorrow.

Moylan produced two try assists and ran for over 180 metres in what was one of his more productive games of his season to date, but was tempered by the three errors including that dropped bomb that enabled the Gold Coast to score the first of those two late tries.

Bryce Cartwright, whose Origin credentials has been under constant scrutiny on the back of perceived defensive issues, led Penrith’s tackle count with 35 yet missed five tackles and was unable to prevent Greg Bird and Agnatius Paasi from scoring their first half tries.

Josh Mansour, despite a tough reflex error in attempting to field a kick from point blank range that from the ensuing set enabled Titans debutant, Nathan Peats to score a soft try, still looms as the most likely of the five Panthers in contention to represent NSW.

The Panthers’s sixth loss likely to be compounded by the season-ending loss of centre Peta Hiku (knee – ACL) while Kiwi forward, James Fisher-Harris could also be sidelined.

Hiku’s injury in particular, now means the Panthers have now lost both preferred starting centres to season-ending knee injuries inside the opening eleven rounds, after Dean Whare injured his knee at training in the lead up to the Raiders game.

The afternoon started brightly enough for the home side, going ahead 6-0 after eight minutes when a Wallace 40/20 attempt resulted in a try to Dallin Watene-Zelezniak. Titans fullback Will Zillman attempted to prevent the ball from going out but only succeeded in allowing the flying Kiwi international winger to regather and dive over in the corner.

But the Gold Coast hit back when Bird, who did his Origin chances no harm at all with another strong performance, scored a soft try one off the ruck from close range in the sixteenth minute.

Tyrone Peachey’s day got off to a good start when his try, off some good lead up work from Jamie Soward and Moylan, enabled the Panthers to regain their six-point advantage in the 28th minute.

But the Panthers were left to rue missed opportunities to extend that lead after tries to both Mansour and James Segeyaro were both denied by the bunker.

The Titans struck again albeit against the run of play in the closing minutes of the first half when Roberts evaded Suaia Matagi, who rushed out of the line, before finding Ryan James in support who duly offloaded for explosive interchange forward Agnatius Paasi to score his fourth try of the season to level the game at half-time, 12-all.

Although the game ebbed and flowed, it also developed into a war of attrition with James Fisher-Harris (suspected broken thumb), Jamie Soward, Greg Bird and Ashley Taylor (all concussion) all first half casualties.

To make matters worse both teams lost key players early in the second half.

Penrith, already with Fisher-Harris out of the match, was joined by Hiku before Titans had problems of their own losing Roberts.

But despite the loss, the Titans were denied the lead in the 48th minute when Nathan Peats’ cross-field kick to the right corner was unable to be controlled by the flying Don.

Jamie Soward’s easy penalty goal again broke the deadlock before the Panthers again pushed the lead out to six through Mansour’s unconverted try midway through the second half.

Penrith again appeared to have capitalised when Leilani Latu stormed over to score his first NRL try in the 71st minute after Merrin’s offload allowed Segeyaro to drift back infield before finding the prop.

But up stepped that man Taylor, to produce some clutch plays in the closing minutes, not only earning the repeat set from the Moylan error before levelling the scores but also came up with the match-winning play.

Panthers coach Anthony Griffin, whose side now clings to eighth spot, lamented after the game how soft defence and errors cost his side two valuable competition points.

“We got what we deserved I thought,” a dejected Griffin said.

“We had enough possession and enough points to win the game but the tries were coming far too easy.

“It was a sign of our whole game today.

“We kept going away from being patient and direct in attack.

“We had a couple of little problems there but in the end 24 points should have been enough to win the game and the way we let in their tries, it was very loose and it was something that was eventually going to cost us.”

Griffin was also disappointed that the Origin hype that had surrounded many of his players leading into the clash may have got the better of them today.

“Well I hope not. I don’t care about Origin. I care about Penrith,” Griffin replied.

“I don’t really care about rep footy. I’m just disappointed that we came up with that performance.

“Today as a team we weren’t anywhere near our best to win that game.

“We let ourselves down, our members and fans who came here today down. It’s not what we’ve been about so far this year.”

PENRITH 24 (D Watene-Zelezniak, T Peachey, J Mansour, L Latu tries; J Soward 4 goals) def. by GOLD COAST 28 (G Bird, A Paasi, N Peats, A Taylor, A Don tries; T Roberts 2 goals, A Taylor 2 goals) at Pepper Stadium. Referee: Henry Perenara, Chris James. Half-Time: 12-12. Crowd 11,210.