The Penrith Panthers aren’t a 2019 NRL premiership threat, says five-eighth James Maloney

Penrith’s James Maloney has never shied away from telling it how it is and the playmaker has served up a brutal assessment about his side. The five-eighth reckons the Panthers aren’t a title threat.

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James Maloney has admitted Penrith are not a premiership threat — yet.

The five-eighth believes the Panthers’ 30-18 loss to Canberra last Sunday exposed a critical weakness in their push for the NRL title.

“Are we a premiership threat? At the moment, no. But we can be. There’s a fair bit of hard work that needs to go in over the next six weeks because you can’t just click your fingers and it happens,” Maloney said.

“We leaked points too easily, the sad thing was the way we leaked them. We spoke about it all week and we gave away too many soft tries.

“You’re not going to win too many semi-finals leaking 30 points.”

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James Maloney doesn’t think his side is currently a premiership threat.

Even halfback Nathan Cleary agrees with Maloney’s candid assessment.

“Our main test was on the weekend (against Canberra) and we failed that. We still have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves a genuine premiership threat. But if we play the football I know we can then we’ll be able to get into the finals series and give it a crack,” Cleary said.

The Panthers can consolidate their spot in the top eight with a win over Canterbury at Bankwest Stadium on Saturday.

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The western Sydney club started the season with only two wins from 10 matches and lost six games in a row during that period.

Since then, a formal reversal and seven straight wins has catapulted Ivan Cleary’s men back into finals contention.

But there was a point where Panthers players secretly feared their season was already over.

After six straight losses Nathan Cleary thought Penrith’s season was over.

Completely dejected following Penrith’s sixth consecutive loss to the New Zealand Warriors in round 10, halfback Cleary doubted whether their season could be salvaged.

“There was some dark times and low points … if you were to tell me we were going to be in the [top] eight after we lost to the Warriors then I probably would have laughed,” he said.

“I was sitting in the sheds after that game and I was almost in tears, it was so overwhelming and it wasn’t a good place to be in. But to turn it around and win seven in a row, it was pretty special to be part of a team that can do that.”

Cleary will come up against Bulldogs fullback Dallin Watene-Zelezniak tonight for the first time since the New Zealand international was released from his contract with the Panthers in June.

The duo, both Penrith juniors, have an intimate knowledge of each other’s game and Cleary knows exactly how to nullify Watene-Zelezniak’s impact.

Dallin Watene-Zelezniak faces his old side for the first time tonight.

“I don’t want to be kicking down his throat because I know how fast he runs the ball back. I’ve also seen him pick out a few halves in his time so hopefully he’ll be running out towards Jimmy [Maloney] and not me,” Cleary said.

The pair still stay in touch but Cleary has put aside their friendship in the lead-up to tonight’s match.

“Dallin and I still speak now … but not in the lead-up to the game. I don’t want to fire him up too much because he’ll probably run over me,” Cleary said.