Full house to be on hand for big western Sydney derby

After western Sydney sporting fans were robbed of the opportunity to see a western Sydney derby in the flesh not once, not twice, but three times last year, BlueBet Stadium is set to rock when the Penrith Panthers and Parramatta Eels lock horns in a heavyweight clash this Friday night.

The full house sign will come as a major financial boost for the Panthers, who lost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue after a lockdown was announced by then-NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian just one week before their Round 17 clash last July.

That match saw the Panthers win by 13-12 after Parramatta’s Mitchell Moses missed a penalty goal at the death, while the return derby, played on the Gold Coast, saw the men in chocolate win in a landslide by 40-6 in the final round.

Ivan Cleary’s side then made it a hat-trick over the blue-and-golds for the year in the semi-finals, winning by 8-6 to end the Eels’ season before ultimately going on to win their first title since 2003.

The pain felt by the Eels players following that heartbreaking defeat was compounded by watching their fiercest rivals go all the way, while they remain without any significant silverware since 1986, save for a pair of minor premierships in 2001 and 2005.

Despite entering those two finals series as hot premiership favourites, the Eels capitulated in shocking fashion, losing the grand final to the Newcastle Knights and a preliminary final to the North Queensland Cowboys by 29-0 respectively.

The Eels’ table-topping efforts in 2001, though, came in a year in which the Panthers finished last on the ladder, but it was the Mountain Men that would have the last laugh as they mounted the premiership dais only two years later, while the Eels finished the 2003 season in ninth place.

The heartbreak suffered by the blue-and-golds in recent times, not least after last year, has fuelled the players’ desire to end what is the competition’s longest active title drought, with 35 completed seasons having passed since they last saluted in 1986.

They head to the foot of the mountains with their tails between their legs following a disappointing 35-4 loss to the Cowboys in Darwin last Saturday night.

(Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

Brad Arthur’s side have in fact lost two of their past three matches, also going down by a single point to the Wests Tigers, after which they thrashed the Newcastle Knights by 39-2 on the road in Round 7.

The burning question the Eels will be faced with is how do they bring down the Panthers, who have won their first eight matches of the season and their past 11 overall, dating back to their semi-final clash last September?

Last Friday night, the Mountain Men were posed with a serious test against the Titans on the Gold Coast, but pulled away to win by 18-4 and remain the only unbeaten side after eight rounds.

The 88 points they have conceded is the fewest by any side, while they rank second in attack, behind the Melbourne Storm whom they play next Saturday night in Magic Round in what’s been dubbed as a potential grand final preview.

Craig Bellamy’s men will watch Friday night’s clash with interest if the Panthers slip up, and if the southerners beat the Dragons at home as expected on Sunday afternoon, the Victorian club will assume top spot on the ladder.

But that’s still ahead of the ladder-leading Panthers, who must first deal with the Eels who were the only side to beat them during the regular season in 2020 in the perfect warm-up to their heavyweight bout with the Storm in Brisbane next week.

Since then, the Mountain Men have won their past four matches against the Eels, and will shoot for a record fifth straight win against them for the first time in the history of this rivalry.

Another win to the Panthers would prove the ultimate dagger in the hearts of Eels fans, who have every right to feel jealous about the current success enjoyed by the westerners.

It’s already hard not seeing your club win the holy grail for over three-and-a-half decades, and it’s even more difficult when your fiercest rivals have won their three titles since.

(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Friday night’s clash at BlueBet Stadium will be the last western Sydney derby played at the ground in its current configuration, with the stadium to be knocked down and rebuilt, giving the Penrith community a new world-class stadium set to open in 2025.

This means that the Panthers will have to play out of CommBank Stadium in blue-and-gold territory for the ensuing two seasons, including any matches in which they are scheduled to play the Eels and Wests Tigers, who are part-time tenants of the ground.

This would potentially mean that the Eels get more of their supporters through the gate for a home game that is not theirs, with the receipts for the gate takings going directly to their rivals.

Just ask the Sharks, who in 2020 and 2021 had to play their home games up the road at Kogarah Oval – home of their bitter rivals the Dragons – while redevelopment works prevented them from playing out of Shark Park in those two seasons.

These are some of the major subplots ahead of the first of two sold-out Western Sydney Derbies this season, with the return clash at CommBank Stadium in Round 20 also set to be off limits to the general public.