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Opinion
All the Sharks need between now and Saturday is for eight misfortunes to strike down the Panthers juggernaut.
Take Nathan Cleary to the Springfield Mystery Spot, give Dylan Edwards a few sips of Mr Burns’ nerve tonic, employ a dodgy hypnotist who’ll turn James Fisher-Harris into a chicken, get Mitch Kenny to do a nightshift at a nuclear power plant with an incompetent safety inspector, ensure Brian To’o is unavailable because he’s attending to a housefire, get Moses Leota into a barroom brawl with Barney Gumble, frame Liam Martin for an unsolved homicide in New York City and tell Jarome Luai to trim those sideburns or he’s off the team.
There, that should do it.
Cronulla have lost seven of their past eight clashes with Penrith dating back to 2019.
Prior to that they actually won 12 of 14 head-to-head encounters but that is ancient history.
Their only win over them in the past five years was a 19-18 triumph over an Origin depleted Panthers outfit in 2021 when Cronulla were playing matches at Kogarah while Shark Park was a full-on construction site, not the partial stadium it continues to be.
And when these teams met earlier this year, Cleary was out with a torn hamstring and the Panthers ran up a 42-0 flogging with Nicho Hynes hobbling off with a calf injury.
The good news for Cronulla is that Hynes is available for the Preliminary Final against Penrith but on the flip side so is Cleary, Luai, Yeo and every other star in Ivan Cleary’s galaxy.
Penrith appear invincible but they have been far from it in 2024. They lost seven of their 24 regular-season matches, their highest tally of defeats since the last time they missed the playoffs back in 2019.
Here’s what the Sharks can glean from those Panthers losses in their quest to come up with a game plan that they can execute (and they’ll likely need to do it to perfection) to prevent the premiers from making a fifth straight Grand Final.
Round 1 – Storm 8, Panthers 0 – It’s clear the visitors were suffering from an onerous build-up to Round 1 which included a trip to the UK for the World Club Challenge final. Melbourne were shaded in pretty much every main statistical category but they managed to control possession better to finish with 53% of the ball, which equated to more than three more minutes with the Steeded in hand.
Round 5 – Sea Eagles 32, Panthers 18 – No Cleary for this one but it was the defence which let the away team down at Brookvale. They gave up eight line breaks with Tom Trbojevic cutting through on three occasions. Fullbacks who can power through gaps in multiple spots on the field can give Penrith trouble – Will Kennedy has attacking strikepower but he can’t just run sweep plays out the back, the Sharks need to try the old Melbourne Smith-Cronk-Slater play to get their fullback sprinting up the guts to try to catch a sluggish marker not covering the middle.
Round 11 – Warriors 22, Panthers 20 – No Cleary again but that’s no excuse given the Warriors went into Magic Round without Shaun Johnson. The Warriors pretty much played the perfect game, it was easily the best of their middling 2024 campaign, and that still was only just enough with a late Taine Tuaupiki try proving the difference. They completed 37 of 42 sets, had 54% possession, made eight line breaks and barely missed a tackle to briefly revive hopes of an encore of their run to the finals the previous year.
Round 13: Dragons 22, Panthers 10 – Not much gold for Craig Fitzgibbon to mine from this video review. Both teams were without their Origin stars and only six Penrith players from this game will be in action next weekend. A 55% possession claim by St George Illawarra was the catalyst for the win.
Blayke Brailey is tackled. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)
Round 17: Cowboys 16, Panthers 6 – Another one for Fitzy to fast-forward through. Both teams opted to rest their Origin stars apart from Yeo getting a run.
Round 24: Storm 24, Panthers 22 – These are the 80 minutes for the Sharks to study in depth. Penrith were at full strength and on home turf but the Storm took the fight to them from the opening whistle and matched their big men in the middle in one of the most intense club games of the season which was more akin to a finals fixture. Melbourne scored two tries from bombs that were batted back – Edwards, To’o and Sunia Turuva form the most potent but the most vertically challenged back three in the NRL so a taller chaser like Teig Wilton or Ronaldo Mulitalo could cause havoc if Hynes and Braydon Trindall can hoist high kicks close to the line.
Round 22: Raiders 22, Panthers 18 – This was an anomaly – Luai should have closed out the match with the team leading late in the contest but went for a low-percentage cut-out pass which led to a long-range intercept try. But it does show that Penrith can have off days against a team that they should wipe the floor with nine times out of 10.
Preliminary finals are tricky matches for a team considered an overwhelming favourite.
Some teams fall into the trap of playing like they’ve got half their mind on the Grand Final and struggle to get out of a funk early in the game, which sparks sudden belief in their underdog opponents.
NRL history is littered with teams who were considered certainties to romp into the premiership decider but stumble at the prelim final hurdle – in 2005 Parramatta and St George Illawarra were prohibitive favourites but both crashed and burned while the Cowboys and Wests Tigers surged into their first ever Grand Final appearances.
The bookmakers don’t give Cronulla ($4 outsiders) or the Roosters ($3.40) on Friday night in Melbourne much of a hope.
All season long a Panthers vs Storm Grand Final has appeared almost inevitable but just like replacing Daryl Strawberry with Homer Simpson at a company softball game after nine home runs, a late twist in the tale can spring up on field when you least expect it.