Penrith finding ways to get around being hammered by referees in set restarts to settle into top four
The Panthers have conceded the most set restarts of any team since the competition resumed yet they have defied this heavy pressure to climb into the top four thanks to an extreme improvement in defence.
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If the Panthers are this good when they’re getting hammered by the refs, imagine what they’ll be like once it evens out.
As revealed by News Corp Australia earlier this week, the Panthers have conceded 28 set restarts since the competition resumed, the most of any team in the league, while receiving just nine in their favour - comfortably the fewest of any side.
And yet the mountain men have defied this heavy pressure, climbing into the top four on the back of an extreme improvement in defence.
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After seven rounds last year Penrith had conceded 150 points, the third-most of any team in the league.
This time around, the miserly Panthers have let in just 98 in seven matches, giving them the second-stingiest defensive line in the NRL.
Coach Ivan Cleary has no answers as to why Penrith are copping such rough treatment - it’s not a tactical move on their part - but admitted weathering such heavy bombardment did give them more faith in their new, steely resolve.
“It does give us confidence. I’m certainly not happy with that ratio, it’s completely skewed with the rest of the league. I’m not sure if there’s a lot of things we can do about that,” Cleary said.
“There’s certainly some things we can control - like the ones we’re giving away - but the ones we’re not getting, that’s a hard one to put your finger on.
“We’d like that to change, we’d like to reduce the ones we give away and hopefully the referees can see we might be able to earn some along the way. It’d certainly make life a lot easier.
“But the fact we’re able to still be competitive, with all that being said, it gives us confidence.”
Penrith have only conceded more than 20 points a game once this season, and that came before the COVID-19 shutdown and the implementation of the new rules.
They’ve also taken some big scalps, downing the Roosters, Storm and Rabbitohs while pushing Parramatta right to the edge in their only loss of the season.
Boasting a handy draw for the rest of the season, the Panthers are rapidly firming to land their first top four berth since 2014.
“We’re concentrating on trying to be consistent, from week to week and during games as well,” Cleary said.
“We’ve been pretty good at that, there’s something we’ve learnt, particularly over the last three weeks, about how to do that. But the pleasing thing is actually getting to that position.
“Being competitive and getting better at handling momentum swings that are so prevalent in today’s game, especially in the big games.”
High-flying Panthers defy NRL’s six-again rules
Phil Rothfield
The Penrith Panthers are making a mockery of the NRL’s new six-again crackdown on wrestling and ruck infringements.
Statistics reveal the Panthers have given away more six-again restarts than any other club in the competition but are still running second on the ladder, just one point behind the Parramatta Eels.
Ivan Cleary’s team has been ‘pinged’ 28 times compared to the Newcastle Knights, the best behaved club in the competition with only 11.
Penrith has also been awarded only nine of the restarts which is by far the lowest amount in the competition.
At the other end of the scale, the team that has been awarded the most six again ‘piggybacks’, Canterbury, can hardly win a game.
The same with St George Illawarra and the Warriors who are in the top four clubs for restarts but are having awful struggles to win matches.
The six-again rule was introduced to bring back entertainment and to get rid of so many stoppages, which it has achieved.
Yet there is a danger that Penrith’s great results, despite being the worst offenders in the game, could convince or encourage other coaches to head down that track.
The Panthers have been outstanding since the new rules were introduced before round three, emerging as a genuine threat to win the title.
In round six they beat the Storm 21-14 but lost the restarts 7-0.
In fairness, Penrith is a bit of a one-off case.
Other teams high on the list of giving away ‘six agains’ are strugglers the Titans, Sharks, Cowboys and the Bulldogs.
Interestingly Newcastle and South Sydney have been clearly the best behaved side around the play-the-ball.
It’s an extraordinary result for the Knights given their tough and bustling style of football.
Also Melbourne Storm, the supposed wrestling champions of the premiership, has given away only 17 restarts in five games – compared to Penrith’s 28.
In a detailed study of more than 6000 play-the-balls this year, the NRL has found 9.4 per cent of them have involved some type of attempted wrestling.
And all 16 teams are doing it.
Still it is a huge improvement on previous seasons.
“We’d like to see it lower more,” NRL’s head of football Graham Annesley said. “We’re not at an acceptable level yet but it’s improving.”
Annesley says the six-again rule change is working, despite the fact Penrith is proving you can be the most heavily punished team but are still winning.
“It was brought in to make the game flow more and a better spectacle and it’s worked,” Annesley said.
“Apart from Penrith, most of the sides who are the worst offenders are lower on the ladder.”
The NRL introduced the rule five weeks ago, but this week made a tweak — referees will re-start tackle counts if markers are not square or break early at the play the ball.