Penrith Panthers silence doubters to come back from 14 points down to beat Parramatta Eels
Is it Gus or Hook in charge? Does it even matter when there is a backrower like Viliame Kikau in your team?
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WHO really cares if Gus or Hook is in charge?
As long as the Panthers keep winning like they did on Sunday, Penrith fans won’t mind.
Coach Anthony Griffin’s men put aside a summer of upheaval, scoring 24 unanswered points to overcome bitter western Sydney rivals Parramatta 24-14 in front of 21,504 fans at a jam-packed Panthers Stadium.
It was an astonishing win given Parramatta scored the opening three tries and looked red-hot. But the Eels just stopped playing.
Penrith, on the other hand, weathered the oppressive heat to come away with a mighty first-up win.
Phil Gould, the general manager of football, must have watched on proudly.
It ended what has been weeks of speculation about the Panthers.
There was talk Gould was too hands-on and Griffin had lost the playing group.
But any side that comes back from 14-0 down to win must have copious amounts of resilience and self-belief.
Griffin was prodded about Gould’s alleged involvement in the day-to-day coaching at the after-game press conference.
“To be honest, I don’t think much about it — I’m not trying to bore you with that,” Griffin said. “I just get on with what I do and we know what we do works.
“How it gets reported, I’ve got no control over. I don’t make much of it, to be honest.
“I don’t write that stuff. From our point of view, the club is in a really good place. We were under an avalanche in that first half and showed a lot of character to hang in there.”
Panthers skipper Peter Wallace also deflected questions about Griffin.
“It’s all outside noise,” Wallace said. “It’s not coming from us. You guys are going to report what you report, we know what we’re doing inside the four walls here,” Wallace said.
Early on it looked as if the Panthers were distracted as Parramatta scored three tries in the opening 26 minutes and looked in total control.
But a try to Panthers centre Waqa Blake five minutes before halftime altered the game’s momentum.
Penrith then assumed control and scored 18 unanswered points in the second half.
Halfback Nathan Cleary, second-rower Viliame Kikau and fullback Dylan Edwards were impressive. Kikau was particularly damaging sparking the comeback and steamrolling over from close to the line soon after the break
Each team scored three tries with Cleary’s goalkicking proving the difference.
A giant sign on the eastern concourse read: “THE WEST IS OURS”. Too true.
“We couldn’t have done any more wrong in that first 20, 25 minutes. We got ourselves into a hole obviously but we got a little bit of rhythm in the back-end of that first half,” Griffin said.
“We were pretty calm and comfortable at halftime. We were positive and the boys were clear in the eyes at halftime.
We weathered a bit of a storm. I thought we had a finish in us.
“(Blake’s first try) came out of nothing. We weren’t doing much but to those six points steadied them down and changed our mindset a bit. We had to settle and go set for set, which we did.
“We finished it off well. It was 18-0 in the second half.”
The match was Jarryd Hayne’s first back in Parramatta colours — and it was a non-event.
In a losing side, his involvement was minimal.
“He was okay but we didn’t win — we’re not going to say any of the boys played well,” said Parramatta coach Brad Arthur. “We didn’t win.”
Eels halfback Mitchell Moses endured a mixed afternoon.
He came from the field in the 15th minute with concussion. He returned ten minutes later before being sin-binned for a professional foul. It was a dubious decision.
Blake scored his second try in the 59th minute but the try was shrouded in controversy.
Waqa’s boot appeared to touch the sideline but, for some strange reason, referee Ashley Klein refused to use the video referee.
Arthur was left to lament a game his side dominated for 35 minutes.
“We came back out of the sheds — we probably didn’t come out of the sheds — and our start to the second half wasn’t good enough,” Arthur said.
“We allowed them back into the game and, to their credit, they came out with plenty of intent and we didn’t match it.
Parramatta captain Tim Mannah refused to blame the heat for his side’s poor second half.
“It wasn’t a factor,” Mannah said. “I don’t think it’s an excuse.”
PENRITH 24 (W Blake 2 V Kikau tries N Cleary 6 goals) bt PARRAMATTA 14 (J Hoffman 2 C Norman tries M Moses goal) at Panthers Stadium. Referee: Ashley Klein, Matt Noyen. Crowd: 21,504.