We’ve approached a point in time about the way we talk about the Penrith Panthers of the last five seasons that appears almost cyclical in nature. Penrith win the Grand Final, lose a bunch of key players, get their depth questioned, have a couple of stumbles in the middle of the season, catch fire late, make another Grand Final, and the process starts anew.
By now you’ve heard the laundry list of lost talent exiting the foot of the mountains over the last few seasons so I’m not going to bother rehashing it again, but it does bear looking at in terms of how this system is able to relentlessly rumble on despite being lopped off limb by limb like a self-mutating and regenerating starfish.
System player is a barb thrown around in this age of takesmanship, where being loud is almost more important than being right, but what the implied taunt of being a “system player” misses is that to be a system player you need a great system that is the sum of all its parts.
You see, the thing about systems is that it takes one grain of sand for the microchip to explode, one faulty circuit breaker to shut down the entire mainframe…as you can see I am not an engineer.
The Penrith system has been lauded in creating first graders out of guys destined for the scrapheap or the annals of the past, guys like the forgotten journeyman Scott Sorensen, cast aside and on the verge of an apprenticeship before getting that career saving phone call, or Lindsay Smith, a robust if unheralded junior prospect, hiding in plain sight among the other glittering jewels in Penrith’s nursery crown.
It is that system that allows the machine to never turn off, and while there’ll be countless tales spun this week about the last ride of Jarome Luai and James Fisher-Harris, about the potential for Nathan Cleary to be the first man to win a third Clive Churchill Medal, about the dizzying heights of a fourth premiership in a row and ivan Cleary’s place among the greats of coaching history, modern and ancient alike, it shouldn’t take away from the muck and sandstone upon which this palace is built.
Take Paul Alamoti for instance, a junior of high regard at Canterbury, thrust into first grade in hindsight maybe before his time, the hopes of a battered and beleaguered fanbase weighing heavily on 18 year old shoulders, chewed up and spat out at Belmore without so much as a second look. Signing for the NRL’s finishing school that is the Panthers reserve grade system, it felt inevitable that Alamoti would have a say in the course of the season.
Now lining up for his maiden Grand Final alongside departing local heroes Jarome Luai and Sunia Turuva, with a world of chaos swirling around him thanks to a changing multitude of second rowers and wingers, bouncing from left centre to right wing, Alamoti’s poise in a changing landscape is allowing the natural talent that everyone knew was there to finally escape and be counted.
James Fisher-Harris and Moses Leota are the best front row partnership in the NRL, and while their output this season has been modest (for their own lofty expectations anyway, most clubs would bite your hand off for what they’ve done), they still carry that fearsome reputation and ability to completely dismantle an opposition middle third.
But the thing about great front row pairings is the higher you are, the bigger the drop off, which makes the form of Lindsay Smith and Liam Henry this season so vital in allowing Penrith to retain their trademark intensity that has carried them to a fifth decider in succession.
To me, the defining characteristic of Penrith’s middles, and their key role in the gameplan, isn’t their work with ball in hand, that good stuff is taken care of by their All-World back three, specifically Dylan Edwards and Brian To’o. No, the main cause of Penrith’s middle domination is their work on the dirty side of the ball in defence.
Watch any Penrith game this season and take note of the average starting position of the set and by extension the average distance the middle forwards have to retreat to get back onside and you’ll note the substantial advantage Penrith’s kick returns and outside back yardage runs create by lessening the workload of their middle forwards. The relationship between Penrith’s front rowers and back three is maybe more apparent than in any other side, and while the back three act as an extension of the forwards in getting the team up the field, it also allows the pack to rest for sets at a time and give full shutdown effort in defence.
It’s because of that system, then, that allows these lesser lights of the forward pack to shine. Lindsay Smith and Liam Henry aren’t household names, but they both carry immense versatility and workrate, and the work of the backs allows them to come on in relief of the starters and not miss a beat. They may not be as damaging as ball runners as the headline act of the “Bash Brothers”, but they never lose the game in their stints.
Finally, we need to talk about Mitch Kenny.
Penrith had longed for a competent hooker since, well, since Api Koroisau left the first time. In between Koroisau’s two stints, Penrith cycled through luminaries like end of career Peter Wallace, Sione Katoa, that random year of Mitch Rein and the embryonic stages of Wayde Egan. It was a revolving door of mediocrity at the position peaking on mere serviceability, but there was always the sense that the limitations at the hooker spot was holding back what the team could become.
Now, as the story goes, Koroisau returned to the club in 2020 and helped transform the attack into what it would become and help lead the team to three straight Grand Finals before again leaving for the financial oasis that is a long term contract at the Wests Tigers, but this time there was an earmarked replacement ready in Mitch Kenny.
Kenny came into first grade with little to no fanfare as a workmanlike hooker/middle forward hybrid, more of a bruising bigger body than a hooker with craft and guile. There was genuine concern that Penrith’s attack would revert to the clunky, stifled mess pre-Koroisau.
And for a while, it was that, with the new spine working to find the right avenue to success, but the marked improvement in Kenny’s work with ball in hand has allowed Penrith to get back to something approaching attackling fluency with all pieces in play.
Kenny isn’t the deceptive puppet master Koroisau was, but his ability to manipulate markers and play with misdirection has steadily grown and improved over the last 18 months. His crowning achievement was obviously dummying open and playing short to set up Nathan Cleary’s match winner in the 2023 decider, but he’s carried that form into 2024, bringing forwards on to the ball and creating space with his decision making off the deck.
No one will mistake him for a Koroisau, but him not standing out is almost just as good.
For the longest time its been Penrith’s bevy of representative stars that have worn the majority of the accolades sent the way of the team, and not undeservingly so, but its time to look under the hood at the yeoman pushing the cart forward.
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In other media news, I appeared on NRL Boom Rookies this week to provide a Penrith perspective for the Grand Final.