The Panthers say nay to us naysayers

It's a line that gets trotted out time and time again. "Buying Premierships". Every club does it, the Roosters are probably the best at getting the high profile names, hence it gets attributed to them more than most. The perception probably isn't helped when every single player who is even remotely linked with leaving their club is said to be "chased by the Roosters". But it is a bit rich coming from a Dragons fan, where did Widdop come from? Hunt? McInnes? These guys are spearheading a premiership charge for the Saints, and there's nothing wrong with them coming from other clubs - it was smart recruitment. At the moment things don't seem to be quite so rosy at Bondi but I've no doubt Easts will be there at the business end and they'll give it a real shake.

Or Penrith's acquisition of the serial winner, Maloney? I'm pretty sure when the Bunnies bought Inglis and the Burgess clan it wasn;t becasue they look good in myrtle. All clubs try to buy players to increase their chances to win a premiership.

Suppose it depends on how you spin it: - Either Saints are soft and can only beat lower teams, or - Saints are tough and have not lost to any team outside of the Top 4

Percentage for/against would just be a complicated way of saying the better defensive team. Still seems odd to me, but it was just a pedantic point.

Dragons are only winning against teams mid table or lower. Why has no one sat St George down for dinner at the soft draw table ? Yet Penrith constantly gets an invite. So hilarious.

Luck of the draw?? " In 12 games they’ve played seven against the bottom four teams the Eels, Cowboys, Bulldogs and Titans" I ask, "Who expected those teams to be bottom four at the start of the season?". Cowboys were going to be front runners.., Eels were going to improve greatly on 2017 results, and Bulldogs were going to produce different results with a new coach, Foran and Woods. We now know what happened with all that lot. Penrith's success is more about their juniors coming through, aided by dominance in Holden and In Trust Super Cups over the last 5 years. With such a huge nursery, anything short of where they are now could be looked on a s failure. The culture in the club is superb now, that the innuendo of 2017 has passed and the players are fully behind the coach and management. It will take a brave person to bet against them come September.

You’re wasting your time, because you’re inventing your own argument and attributing it to me... One hand you criticise me for jumping from a ladder analysis to bring form into the discussion then on the other hand you say pure ladder analysis is lazy. So which is it? “Penrith’s draw is no more lucky than it is unlucky” Rubbish. That’s effectively saying it doesn’t matter if you play the best performing sides in the comp or the worst sides in the comp? Of course it does. For all the hours you’ve spent on your post it’s based on a predicate that’s completely incorrect. It’s a waste of time. It’s this simple. When there’s a draw where teams don’t play every other team an equal amount of times and where teams can play opposition twice within weeks there will be teams that “get lucky” with the draw and teams that don’t. If you don’t agree with that, explain to me how the draw is exactly equitable for every team and no team has an advantage or disadvantage based on the opponents they’ve drawn in the first 12 rounds. That’s the nonesensical part of all this. And “it’s even enough” doesn’t come close to cutting it. And if it’s not even, then some teams get a favourable draw, some teams don’t. End of story... You say about Penrith’s draw “Also, both of their matches after origin games are 6pm friday matches, literally the worst timeslot when you have four players you want to have backup” Here you claim Penrith will have a tough draw over Origin but can’t accept that they have had an easier section of the draw? With 7 out of 12 games against the bottom four teams in the comp, the Panthers have had a lucky start to the season as far as the draw is concerned. There’s just no two ways about it. So if you don’t agree with ladder position as a way to determine the quality of the opposition that’s fine. Do it by for and against or pick another measure. I bet whatever the measure the quality of the opposition the Panthers have faced so far is well and truly on the easy side of the draw. You spend the first half of this post moaning about ladder only analysis and then come up with “the ladder is always a good representation of the teams up to that point” so to you ladder position is a good representation of Penriths form but not the form of their opposition. Right. You flip your argument as it suits you. “Maybe winning regardless of favourable times or not is a good indicator of how good a team is rather than looking at the…lol…’ladder spots of teams they’ve beaten’.” I’ve acknowledged the Panthers are playing good football and are a genuine contender...but you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the quality of the opposition they’ve played comes into it. Good luck to the Panthers, soft draw or not. I actually really enjoy watching them play and JFH is one of my favourite players in the comp at the moment.

"The Eels, Cowboys, Bulldogs and Titans are the bottom four teams on the ladder. They’ve been ordinary all year. Their form has been consistently poor, week in, week out. I didn’t think that needed to be explained." Such a vague and terrible point you made here which in doing so proven me right further. For teams to be at the bottom of the ladder, they need to lose matches. Easy concept to understand. But where does the discussion about the difficulty of their draws come into play? When you try to justify or question a team's placing on the ladder, you need to look beyond the ladder placings of those teams that were beaten otherwise it's just a logical fallacy. I'm not suggesting based on this alone Penrith have beaten tough teams every week, but it means that criticism birthed from pure ladder analysis is lazy and stupid. You tried to give greater depth to this argument with saying all those teams have been poor every week. Again, that's absolute vague garbage. The Parra side Penrith beat in round one wasn't going to win the comp but they were far better in that match than they were in any other game this season. You can't compare that performance with how they played against Manly the following week. Every team has rises and dips in form, regardless of their supposed team quality in the first place. Titans, a team that has been "consistenly poor" this season was 3-2 coming up against us and their only two losses was against the red hot Warriors and Dragons. They were in really good form and win would lift them into the top four. Penrith beat them. Again, there is too many levels for the easy draw argument to be a sufficient argument against a team. "The Knights and Tigers in particular have had seasons where they started extremely strongly and have fallen away recently. Watch a game or two, look at their ladder standings through the season, there’s plenty of markers. The Sharks and Souths started the season a bit slowly compared to how they’ve played lately. Again, if you’d watched a game or followed the comp it’s pretty easy to understand. The Panthers met all those teams at favourable times." Favourable times? Lol. Come on buddy, you can't use the ladder argument then type this part up. You can say Knights fell down a bit when Pearce got injured but Tigers? Packer being out was a loss for a few weeks and hurt their go forward but they played much against Penrith than in the previous weeks after they got some confidence back against the Cowboys. Souths started slowly? If it wasn't for a forward pass call just before half time they might have beaten the red hot Warriors in round one. Again, there's too many factors for your argument to work. Sharks didn't start the season well but how does that make an injury riddled Penrith loss to them in round 7 look any different? To conclude this part of your argument, I have to say that Penrith have had a lot of injuries this season and in doing so given other teams "favourable times" against us. Guess what, we're still first. Maybe winning regardless of favourable times or not is a good indicator of how good a team is rather than looking at the...lol...'ladder spots of teams they've beaten'. "The rest of it’s not that hard to understand. Not every team plays each other twice and then the NRL stacks the draw so that teams can play one another twice in a couple of weeks. If you really can’t see how that can result in teams getting a lucky draw compared to others then you really shouldn’t be calling people simpletons." If Penrith were drawn against Cronulla within the first month chances are they win. If Penrith aren't drawn against Canterbury after they've played against Roosters and Storm and are desperate to win to pay tribute to a recently passed legend of the club, chances are they win that too. If Penrith had the opportunity to play a lethargic Brisbane team instead of a team desperate to win like the Cowboys then Penrith probably wins. It goes both ways. Penrith's draw is no more lucky than it is unlucky. Also, both of their matches after origin games are 6pm friday matches, literally the worst timeslot when you have four players you want to have backup. Also, guess who's the one team in the competition who has to play the one New Zealand team with Origin players away? Exactly. "The only way you can counter what I’m saying is to say the draw is exactly equal and comparable for all teams. Which by definition it clearly isn’t." It's equal enough. Dragons have had the luxury of playing Sharks when they had players out and couldn't score at all and also played a Souths side without Burgess. They've had the luxury of playing the Titans when they put in their worst performance of the season. Unfortunately for them, they had to play a red hot Warriors team in New Zealand that was determined to break their streak. Swings and roundabouts. If you take out those three wins they had against Souths and Sharks they're still yet to beat a top four side. But again, that's a pointless statistic. They're 2nd. They deserve to be where they are. You can go through doing this with every team. The point is, every team has certain beneficial and treacherous things that happen in relation to the draw but the ladder is always a good representation of the teams up to that point. Complaining about it is nothing more than nonsensical bickering by people who were stupid enough to believe even for a second that Penrith were going to struggle this season. A team who's made the finals 2014, 2016 and 2017 and would have made 2015 as well if not for one of the worst injury tolls in NRL history, is high up on the ladder? Wow, no way. "Do you watch rugby league?" I do, and unfortunately I have seen many of your posts here over the years. You've had some terrible takes but this is certainly up there. Surprised you know how to spell Rugby League let alone know how to use the internet. Also, I love the 'cheeky' stabs through out that post. But without a sensible argument to go with it, you've essentially tried to put frosting on a cake that you haven't even put in the oven yet. Good luck trying to line up the dial with the right number without getting a headache, 'simpleton'.

Do you watch rugby league? The Eels, Cowboys, Bulldogs and Titans are the bottom four teams on the ladder. They’ve been ordinary all year. Their form has been consistently poor, week in, week out. I didn’t think that needed to be explained. The Knights and Tigers in particular have had seasons where they started extremely strongly and have fallen away recently. Watch a game or two, look at their ladder standings through the season, there’s plenty of markers. The Sharks and Souths started the season a bit slowly compared to how they’ve played lately. Again, if you’d watched a game or followed the comp it’s pretty easy to understand. The Panthers met all those teams at favourable times. The rest of it’s not that hard to understand. Not every team plays each other twice and then the NRL stacks the draw so that teams can play one another twice in a couple of weeks. If you really can’t see how that can result in teams getting a lucky draw compared to others then you really shouldn’t be calling people simpletons. The only way you can counter what I’m saying is to say the draw is exactly equal and comparable for all teams. Which by definition it clearly isn’t.

So in the space of two paragraphs you went from using ladder placements as a definitive indicator of a team's quality then shifted to the argument that a team's quality can fluctuate through out the season based on the form. The easy draw argument is a stupid one and is used by simpletons. It makes no logical sense. Penrith are the 'toughest' team in the competition at the moment. Time for everyone to accept it.

Not sure that anyone’s really complaining about it but surely you can see that in a draw where not everyone plays everyone twice and where the NRL issues a draw where teams can play each other twice within a couple of weeks that luck is going to play a factor? Hence the saying ‘luck of the draw’

People blaming the draw for a teams good or bad performance? Are there any more excuses people want to use? The draw is the draw, live with it. There are bigger issues in the game then the strength or weakness of a draw. If you want a fair draw then petition the NRL supremos to change it, but please don't cry there is a problem unless you have a viable solution. In saying that here's my solution. Competition gets split into 2 'pools'. You play everyone in your pool once, then everyone in the other pool once, then everyone in your pool again. As it currently stands that would be 22 rounds. Top 4 finals in each pool with the pool winners playing off in a grand final. No one can complain then about 'weak or strong' draws as for each team in the pool they'll play every team the same amount of times.

To be fair favouritism has meant very little this season anyway! You only need to know that by looking at my early season tipping results. Only finally starting to get consistently high scores now.

Hey AJ - as a Penrith fan I can probably help you: Round 1 - Penrith were favourites against Parra but pretty sure it was a $1.90 split by kick-off. Round 2 - Penrith were favourites against Souths who were coming off a bad loss to NZ. Round 3 - Penrith were obviously favourites against the Dogs. Round 4 - Penrith were rank outsiders against the Cowboys. Round 5 - Penrith would have been favourites again against Parra. In fact, the only other game we haven't been favourites in was the match against the Dragons. Hate it when the punters get on board with us, gets my hopes up!

Lol.

Hope you have had your flu shots AJ.

Yep, still waiting for Griffin to be first man sacked, apparently he wouldn't last the first month. Concocted media stories written by an organisation and "journalists" with an agenda should be immediately dismissed, but people still fall for them. Full credit to Penrith as a whole. They have introduced a new coaching structure and it seems to be working, with the staff and players buying in on it.