Panthers triumph over spirited Dogs

From the very beginning, it was clear that this week’s preliminary final was going to be a very different kind of match from the Round 26 clash between the Panthers and the Sea Eagles.

Whereas Manly were utterly decimated from the opening minutes, it looked as if Canterbury-Bankstown had studied last week’s game to a tee and were determined to prevent history repeating itself when they strode onto Allianz Stadium.

From the outset, there was a passion and purpose to the Dogs that built some of their best defensive sets of the season, especially at the fourteenth and eighteenth minutes respectively.

Clearly determined to prevent Waqa Blake, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and the rest of the Penrith outside backs breaking into open space, the Dogs’ defence was amazing both at the Penrith line and at their own, with the latter especially clear during a set at the 21st minute during which the Mountain Men did everything to burst through the Bulldogs’ line and weave their way through some of the biggest forwards in the business.

Similarly, it was clear that the Dogs were determined to do everything in their power to diffuse Nathan Cleary’s bombs, with the absence of Will Hopoate making it especially important for the backline to show extra dexterity under the high ball. Both Morris brothers did a brilliant job, with one of the most incredible moments coming at the 34th minute.

As Brett was being examined for a leg injury that would plague him throughout the game, the Panthers attack had started to move back towards the Canterbury-Bankstown line when Matt Moylan found open space after a deft offload, only to be caught and dragged to a halt by Josh.

In a surprise twist, however, Moylan turned the tackle into an opportunity to allow himself to be dragged out of the field of play, setting up a penalty and a new set of six that would yield the Panthers’ first and only try of the opening stanza.

It was a moment that foreshadowed the second half of the game, when Penrith would return to the dominant form that they demonstrated against the Sea Eagles last week, and the Bulldogs’ injury count would intensify and multiply.

Of course, injuries are always a big part of finals football, but with six interchanges in the first fifty minutes, it was clear that the Bulldogs were particularly hard hit.

Watching them, I felt once again how unreasonable it was for Will Hopoate to have only announced his no-Sunday policy after signing his contract, since this was precisely the kind of game where the team needed its resident fullback as their custodian.

While Morris may be a better player, the fact Hopoate has played at No.1 for most of the year would have made him a more stable and sustainable choice at this point, and with Morris’ leg getting the best of him, the outside backs had to band together and share the role of fullback among them.

If that wasn’t enough, Michael Lichaa was out for much of the first half, while Josh Reynolds sustained a head injury that saw him off for most of the crucial second stanza.

Combined with Morris’ intermittent absence and compromised play – as well as Hopoate’s absence – this was effectively a team without a spine, and there was a continual sense, as the game proceeded, of Canterbury-Bankstown struggling to regroup and juggle a whole lot of moving pieces in the face of a Penrith side that has become more and more consolidated, more and more disciplined and more and more focused over the last couple of weeks.

Things got especially hairy just before the break, with Lichaa and Morris both off and the Panthers given a penalty halfway through their set, culminating with what was probably the Dogs’ most impressive defensive effort of the match, albeit not the flashiest, with Trent Merrin bringing the ball to ground just shy of the line at the sixth tackle.

By the end, all the team’s major leaders and custodians were absent, making it a particularly poignant and painful match to watch for anyone with even the most residual sympathy for Canterbury-Bankstown.

In effect, the Dogs weren’t playing as a full team, and as the game ground on, the recurring blue-and-white image was of a Canterbury-Bankstown player lying on the ground as the game moved on around them or – more commonly – as the Panthers advanced on the Bulldogs line.

The increasingly inevitable defeat was all the more difficult to watch in that Canterbury-Bankstown had been particularly dominant in the first stanza, and had looked to stage an upset to rival the Sharks’ victory over the Raiders at GIO the previous evening, with Brett Morris looking set for a great evening at fullback after stopping Penrith at the end of a dangerous set ten minutes in and proving himself particularly adept underneath Cleary’s bombs.

Yet if there was anyone who seemed to momentarily signal a Bulldogs resurgence it was Moses Mbye, who put in one of his best games in weeks.

Bringing in the first four-pointer of the night with a beautiful move on the third tackle at the 13th minute, he simply dodged between Bryce Cartwright and Waqa Blake to plant the ball to the ground.

Over the last few games, the Bulldogs forwards have often struggled to carve away enough space for the halves to really shine, so there was something especially rousing about seeing Mbye come good, and it filled the team with a sense of purpose and determination that was followed by their single best defensive set of 2016, in which they managed to keep Penrith within their own 10-metre line for their first three tackles.

Things only seemed to be getting better for Mbye when he took the two from a penalty at the 25th minute. But his best moment came later in the game, at the 64th minute, when he gifted the ball to Watene-Zelezniak only to chase him down the length of the field and make not one but two attempts to stop him, finally bringing him to a halt a foot from the line.

As the Fox commentators put it, what started off as the blooper of the match turned into the defensive play of the match, and seemed to suggest that, even at this late stage, the Dogs were determined to hold their own.

Unfortunately, Penrith simply proved too good, putting in a second stanza of football that was arguably even gutsier and more powerful and explosive than their effort against Manly the week before.

Granted, this time around they were dealing with a team without a fullback, as well as a team plagued by injury and absence, but it was still amazing to see how they capitalised upon those weaknesses to consolidate and refine themselves as a team in the process.

As the Fox commentators pointed out, there was a sense that the Panthers were enjoying footy above and beyond anything else – they had that sense of flow, that sense of a runner’s high, that comes when everything is working, and the tries just rolled in during the second half.

Apparently, Anthony Griffin has been working hard on bringing a sense of pleasure and camaraderie into the team’s finals football culture – the celebratory drinks, the post-match huddle – and that infectious delight in the game looked like a big asset to the Mountain Men during the second half of the match.

Of course, there were outstanding players, but so brilliant and effervescent were the Panthers that it was hard to pick out any one star.

As always, Nathan Cleary was brilliant with the boot, sailing the Steeden up into the air whenever he got the chance to set up a floating bomb, and setting up the incredible series of passes that culminated with Watene-Zelezniak bringing in the first Panthers try of the afternoon at the 35th minute, racking up his ninth try assist in the process.

At the same time, Waqa Blake capitalised on the big Panthers push before halftime with a try, while Tyrone Peachey was all over the field. Josh Mansour put in arguably his most impressive show of sheer courage and brute strength of the 2016 season with a mad dash down the length of the field in the 64th minute that saw him shrugging off a handful of Bulldogs players to plant the Steeden squarely in the left corner of the in-goal area before rising for a warriors’ cry that seemed to perfectly mirror the utter exhilaration sweeping across a crowd of Penrith supporters for whom this kind of victory seemed like only a dream earlier in the season.

Still, it was Peter Wallace who really seemed to steal the show and personify the Panthers’ strength and spirit.

In a year in which the Riff has lost one of its most storied veterans in Jamie Soward and one of its most iconic young guns in James Segeyaro, Wallace seemed to encapsulate the legacy of the club and played as its custodian as much as Moylan. Time and again, he demonstrated his dexterity in play-the-balls as well as his vision and structure for the team.

It felt appropriate, then, that Wallace should be the one to culminate one of the best team tries of the entire season in the 53rd minute with a four-pointer that had a bit of Peachey and Moylan in it as well, as the ball travelled nearly the length of the field before being placed on the ground right under the posts.

Let’s not forget Moylan’s brilliance at fullback as well; if nothing else, this finals push will have provided him with the pressure and intensity he really needs to shed the last few vestiges of his apprenticeship days and graduate into the No. 1 and leader that Penrith has always needed. Between him and Wallace, it’s clear the Panthers are bookended by two of the best rugby league minds in the business.

All of which makes it fascinating to see what will happen when the Panthers travel down to GIO this weekend to take on the Raiders.

In a way, it’s a shame that the finals draw has panned out like this, since these are both teams I would have liked to see make it all the way to the final showdown.

The good thing about Saturday’s game is that one of them will win, the bad thing is that one of them will lose, but either way it will make for great footy, especially after the performances that both teams have brought to this first weekend of the finals season.