Against popular opinion I’d like to suggest that losing so many superstar players over the last four years has actually ‘helped’ Penrith maintain their stranglehold at the top of the NRL ladder.
The Panthers have been on top of the table, riding high with four straight Grand Finals and three consecutive premierships and look in prime position to win four titles on the trot this season.
Wait a second, how can losing topline talent and representative players like Stephen Crichton, Spencer Leniu, Matt Burton and Viliame Kikau be a positive?
Simple, the production line assembled at the foot of the mountains via the club’s celebrated ‘Pathways Program’ just keeps churning out quality players to replace ones lost but you still have to keep your spine strong and intact.
Then build your players around your 1, 7, 9 and 13. It also helps when you have a representative prop, second rower and winger to support that spine.
Throw in the odd shrewd buy from outside the club and you have a recipe for long-term success.
The next generation of Panthers are already coming through to replace the stars which have departed.
18-year-old Casey McLean is his own man but has already been compared to Stephen Crichton.
He’s only a baby in terms of NRL experience but what he’s shown in the four NRL games he’s played so far has Penrith supporters salivating for more.
Casey’s 19 year-old brother Jesse, looks equally as promising as does backrower 20-year-old Luron Patea and the list goes on.
There’s no doubt losing star players in the past has had an extremely negative impact on the club. They simply weren’t set up to handle it.
However coach Ivan Cleary has learned to embrace the challenge and turned an otherwise negative into an amazing positive.
Early in the 2023 season Cleary admitted to having to tinker with the side’s attacking philosophy following the departure of Viliame Kikau to the Bulldogs.
It was a bit clunky at first without the ‘big fella’ but it didn’t take long for coach Cleary to get it right.
It’s nothing new for Penrith to lose key players to the salary cap at the end of every season.
The coaching staff and players adapt and now see it as a pivotal part of the developing the club’s ‘next man up’ culture.
Having such high player turnover keeps existing players fresh and motivated.
It also keeps the playing group from becoming stale.
Same old training drills, same old moves, same old philosophies year after year.
Not at the Panthers.
People have been predicting Penrith’s demise since 2020 when the club made its first Grand Final in 17 years.
The loss to the Storm that year was supposed to have stopped the team dead in its tracks.
How wrong the critics and cynics were.
Now the same lines from the media and opposition fans are circulating again.
“Enjoy 2024 Panthers because without Jarome Luai and Sunia Turuva, your era of dominance will soon be over.”
There’s no doubt the Panthers dominance will one day come to an end, it’s kind-of inevitable that it will.
But not today….and probably not tomorrow either.
Peter Lang
Peter Lang is an experienced sports writer, who has been covering rugby league for several decades. He first wrote Lang on League for the Weekender in the 1990s, and worked for Panthers on its famous Panthers Magazine for several years.