Cleary hails 'win for our culture' as lacklustre Panthers do enough to beat Titans, Fifita injured

Penrith have come back from a half time deficit to overcome the Gold Coast Titans and continue their unbeaten start to 2022, scoring three second half tries to win 18-4.

It was an uncharacteristically clunky first 40 from the Panthers – and a surprisingly resilient defensive display from the Titans – but the Premiers roared out of the blocks with two quickfire tries after the break to canter home in the end, before Jarome Luai added some gloss at the end.

Cleary was less than pleased with a performance that saw his team give away nine penalities and make ten errors with just one line break.

“It was a win for our culture tonight,” Penrith coach Ivan Cleary said. “We weren’t at our best…but our defence held firm.”

He could look at his son Nathan, who laid on all three tries, and Izack Tago, who nullified David Fifita, as the standouts for his team. Beyond those two, not many had a good night with ball in hand.

This was a game in which neither team attacked superbly, but in which the Panthers did the bare minimum required to win. On another night, against a better team, they might well have lost. It was their fortune that they were facing the Titans.

This was the second-worst attack in the NRL against the second-best defence, so perhaps it should not have been surprising that the Gold Coast failed to threaten. Despite several periods of good ball, they managed just one try, and that was something of a fluke.

Justin Holbrook was questioned about his decision to bench million dollar man David Fifita, who ended up leaving the game with a medial ligament injury and may now face time on the sidelines.

“He is more of an impact player,” said Holbrook. I would rather he play 60 minutes full of quality rather than get gassed and try to push for 80 for the sake of it.”

“I thought the (team) changes were right. We just couldn’t withstand them.”

Holbrook could certainly be happy with the way that his team started. They have been one of the worst defensive sides in the competition, but were able to withstand multiple repeat sets on their line from the Panthers.

Penrith had 58% possession in the first 20 minutes, as well as the bulk of field position, but were repetedly repelled. The Gold Coast were far from perfect and kept inviting the Premiers back into position via yardage penalties, but were not punished.

When Penrith did get over the line through Dylan Edwards, the bunker intervened to call an obstruction.

The Titans might have wanted to wait to get David Fifita on the field, and would have been happy to have got to 20 minutes unscathed.

Fifita finally arrived, but the Titans were unable to get him into the game. They fought and fought, and were given opportunities by Panthers errors, but when the Gold Coast got sets of good ball they rarely went to the strike player and too often tried crash plays. Against Penrith’s defence, that rarely works.

After another terrible set on the Penrith line, suddenly a miracle happened. Having studiously avoided Fifita for five tackles, a bounce went to the second rower, he produced a late offload, a second kick followed and somehow Greg Marzhew was in.

It wasn’t a tackle five play in any coaching manual, but amazingly, the Titans were on the board.

The defence that had kept Penrith at bay for 40 minutes in the first half would last just four in the second.

It was exactly the sort of try that Penrith so frequently score – Cleary grubber, Kikau pick up – with the only difference that Kikau was took out en route to the ball, with Izack Tago touching down.

The try actually a good result for the Titans, who would have faced a penalty try and Patrick Herbert in the bin had he not.

Moments later, the Kikau-Cleary trick would be repeated. The halfback dug into the line and all but sent his edge forward through. He couldn’t get there himself, but slipped an arm free to return the ball for Nathan to score.

It wasn’t only one-way traffic. The Titans were still punching back, and hanging in there when needed. Taylan May was denied a long-range try by Will Smith, followed on the next tackle by Tanah Boyd stopping Tago from close range.

If he had his time again, the Penrith centre might have passed to the space rather than diving for himself.

Despite the scoreboard switch, there were still plenty of errors in Penrith. Tago and Edwards both spilled bombs and allowed easy field position, but time and again, the attack was lacklustre.

The halves pairing of Toby Sexton and Will Smith were struggling to make any impact ,in particularly getting the ball towards Fifita – and when Fifita did get it, he was often ironed out by Tago. The star man departed with 11 minutes to go and sat on the bench with ice on his knee.

In the end, the game petered out with the Titans offering little. A late try for Jarome Luai – a carbon copy of Tago’s – was the last action in a poor game where, in the end, the result was all that mattered for the Panthers.