Opinion
As this season progressed, the more certain I became of the outcome: Melbourne and Penrith, the dominant and most exhilarating teams of the past two years, to again take their rightful places in the grand final.
This article was originally going to be about that game. And what a game it promised to be. Penrith hell-bent on revenge and Melbourne seeking back-to-back titles that would establish them as one of the great outfits of all time.
We now know that game will not take place. In sport, as with world events, things can change very quickly.
A fortnight ago, without warning and against the odds, Wayne Bennett delivered the first blow to the Panthers’ premiership hopes. Their prospects weren’t terminal – well, not yet. Last Saturday, still wounded, they managed to hold out a gallant Parramatta.
By sending Penrith to the Storm’s side of the draw, Bennett’s masterful ambush also ended the prospect of there being the grand final that many expected and wanted most.
And this is not to denigrate a grand final featuring South Sydney or Manly. The resurrection of Des Hasler, the only current coach with a winning record against Craig Bellamy, has been a wonderful story, and Bennett has again shown his ability to change the course of events. A grand final involving either of these two eccentric masters and their tough, resilient teams will be great viewing.
But love them or hate them, Melbourne and Penrith are special.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
There are striking similarities between Penrith of 2020 and Melbourne of 2006: precocious youngsters who came from nowhere to win the minor premiership only to be beaten by almost the same margin – Panthers by six, Storm by seven – in nailbiting grand finals.
Their success is a testament to the importance of player development rather than star recruitment. There is the famous photo of the boyish Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk at the Norths Devils and more recently the one of Nathan Cleary and Jarome Luai together in their junior Panthers days. Penrith have cultivated their western nursey and Storm have always found fertile ground in Queensland and on Sydney’s NRL garbage tips.
They are wonderful teams to watch in attack and defence, and the players appear to have a genuine affection for each other and their club. At the Storm the glowing tributes flow from new arrivals (Reimis Smith: “The move to Melbourne has been the best decision of my life”), those re-signing (Ryan Papenhuyzen: “I’m excited and pumped because I love everything about this club”) and those leaving (Josh Addo-Carr: “I’m super blessed to be a part of this team and this organisation. They’ve changed my life around and it’s a special journey I’ve been on”).
The stories and changing fortunes of these two teams throughout this regular season were succinctly documented by Jamie Soward in his power rankings for the NRL website. South Sydney, Parramatta and later Manly would hover over proceedings, but essentially it was about the big two.
At the beginning Soward had Melbourne tentatively at No. 1 and Penrith at No. 2. Just 31 minutes into the season with a scintillating Storm sans Cameron Smith up 22-0 against the Rabbitohs, Andrew Voss said: “I’m going to lock this in already … the new big three at Melbourne is [Cameron] Munster, Papenhuyzen and [Harry] Grant, and two of those are relative rookies!”
After Storm’s tight losses in Rounds 2 and 3 to Parramatta and the Panthers, Soward swapped the numbers, but he was really just nitpicking. “The only thing that will stop Penrith is themselves,” he wrote, and on Melbourne he said, “What a performance, what a club … they’re on another grand final collision course with Penrith”.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
With a comparatively easy first half to the draw the Panthers purred along. A defining moment came in Round 14 when the Storm finally knocked them off the top of the ladder after consecutive losses without their Origin players. And Soward had this to say of Melbourne: “Clinical, so professional. They get the job done; it doesn’t matter who they’re playing. This is a side that understands who they are. I think the Panthers are looking over their shoulder a little bit now and realising that Melbourne might be their kryptonite”.
But in another twist Melbourne began to show signs of fatigue as they approached the all-time record of consecutive wins and lost to Parramatta for a second time.
With the fortuitous late=season recruitment of Tevita Pangai Jr and the return of Nathan Cleary and Brian To’o from injury and James Fisher-Harris from leave the vibe of the Panthers changes. Soward wrote: “This is Penrith’s time now. It’s been Melbourne all year, but looking at the Panthers, they’ve got a bee in their bonnet. They’re fresh, they’re young – they might be ready to go.” On Melbourne: “A bit less confident in the Storm than I have been all year. Josh Addo-Carr has a hamstring injury and there are doubts about Cameron Munster’s fitness.”
And yet a week later the Storm demolished a confident Manly in their qualifying final. Soward wrote: “The first week of the finals showed that you’re the champs until you’re the champs no more … the Storm reaffirmed their standing as the best team in the competition”. And on the Rabbitoh’s ambush of Penrith: “I think this is the lowest I’ve had Penrith in the past two years. Really disappointed with what they showed.”
Throughout the year the premiership betting markets had Penrith and Melbourne as clear favourites on almost equal footing, but after the Panthers’ qualifying final loss the odds changed drastically. On Wednesday the Storm were at $1.80 and the Panthers at $5.00, just 50 cents from the encroaching Rabbitohs.
Finals are often referred to as a different competition. If that is true, should they even exist as the defining moment of the original one? Surely the best team, even with the inconsistencies of the regular-season draw and the influence of injuries, luck and that mystifying phenomenon known as ‘form’, are the minor premiers.
But of course the allure of a grand final is undeniable because it reduces the test of who is the best to a single 80-minute contest.
In the great ones it can come down to the final seconds. Please excuse the digression, but when the final siren of the 2015 grand final between Brisbane and North Queensland sounded the Broncos were ahead 16-12. The records tell us they lost 16-17. What happened in the final moments that cost them the premiership?
There was Johnathan Thurston receiving a tired pass from Jake Granville that could easily have been knocked on. He looked to go down the blindside but turned back to the middle. Adam Blair tried to end it with a brutal hit but overreached. Andrew McCullough got his hands to Thurston but was shrugged off and could only watch as the helmeted maestro sent Michael Morgan on a diagonal run that drew several defenders and with a backhand offload put Kyle Feldt over the tryline as the siren struggled to be heard above the screams of joy and despair.
Thurston’s missed conversion added further status to this legendary game, but the overriding image was the one of poor Ben Hunt bowed and on his haunches after dropping the golden point kickoff. He knew it was all over and that he cost his team the premiership – and remember, he had also given away a late penalty and had been stripped of the ball, which led to the Cowboys’ final try. As the other Cowboys players celebrated the error, James Tamou, in a touching gesture, lent down to offer him some comfort.
It’s a shame Melbourne and Penrith won’t have the opportunity to provide such a grand final. Let’s hope their preliminary final comes close. Up against a refreshed and full-strength Storm, a ruthless attacking and defensive juggernaut with the greatest points differential in history, the weary-looking Panthers are in the crosshairs.
With all the talk recently of Ivan Cleary’s unenviable record of having coached the second most games without a premiership, it hasn’t been mentioned that he as Warriors coach engineered two devastating finals losses for the Storm when they were minor premiers. The first was the 2008 qualifying final when his eighth-placed team scored the matchwinning try with two minutes remaining, forcing the Storm into a do-or-die semi-final against Brisbane. Melbourne snatched that in one of the all-time great matches, but a grand final mauling at the hands of Manly awaited them. The second was the 2011 preliminary final.
Melbourne appears to be cruising along the road to successive titles, but perhaps on Saturday afternoon Cleary can deliver a fatal blow the favourites.
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