Two months ago Mitch Kenny was cutting the grass at Penrith, now he is their No. 1 hooker

Two months ago Mitch Kenny would watch the Panthers players train as he mowed the near-by lawns. Now he is taking the field alongside them as a peer.

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Two months ago Mitch Kenny would watch the Panthers run drills as he mowed the neighbouring training-ground lawns. Wearing his hi-vis shirt, Kenny would wave at the players he wanted to play alongside.

That was then. Kenny’s rise this season from Panthers groundskeeper to first-choice hooker has been remarkable.

The 21-year-old earnt a couple of hundred dollars a month from the Panthers as part of a train-and-trial deal over summer. He sat outside their top 36-man squad and was deemed a “billion to one” to play a top-grade game this year.

When the call eventually came ahead of round 11, he didn’t even have Ivan Cleary’s number in his phone when the Panthers coach rang to tell him he would be making his NRL debut.

Before this year, Kenny had never started a game in the No.9 jersey.

Penrith Panthers player Mitch Kenny started the year as one of the Panthers’ gardeners. Picture by Damian Shaw

The stocky Panthers local captained the club’s Jersey Flegg side last year at lock. He was given an opportunity to stay on as a part-time member of the reserve grade side and had set his goals of earning a starting spot in Canterbury Cup this year and a development contract with the Panthers next year.

“I thought I would have to start off the bench in NSW Cup,” Kenny said. “I never thought I would be playing first grade.

“The conversation with the club last year was, ‘We love what you do as a player, but there isn’t a full-time spot. We want you to stay and play reserve grade and see what happens’.

“I had a guaranteed second-tier contract. I had a guaranteed six weeks with first grade in pre-season.”

That stint put a “couple of hundred dollars” in his pocket a month. But in February Kenny returned to a new team — the “grounds team”, as Kenny would call them, the men on the tools who look after the vast grounds at Penrith’s training headquarters.

From “billion to one shot” to trying to take down James Tedesco. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

“I would drive past the (NRL) boys every morning and I would give them a wave wearing my high-vis,” he said. “I was cutting grass or doing stuff in the gardens and they would drive past me in the mornings.

“I was filthy. Not resentment. It was just I had that burning desire I wanted to be there.”

Kenny would be behind a mower before 6am, helping cut lawns, lay turf, use the whipper snipper and do weeding. His shift would end about 2.30pm and he would front up for Canterbury Cup training at 4pm.

“That would finish about 7.30pm and I would go home to Windsor by eight, have dinner, go to bed. And do it all over again.”

Despite being just weeks into his new position on the field, Kenny was selected for this year’s NSW Residents team.

A matter of days later the 21-year-old was asked if he could train with the Panthers’ top-grade side again as suspensions and injuries mounted ahead of Penrith’s round 11 clash with the Parramatta Eels.

“I thought I would just be training with them again for the day,” Kenny said. “Ivan told me he didn’t want me to get my hopes up and it needs to go through the NRL, but they were going to see if I could get an exemption to play.

Mitch Kenny said he was overcome with emotion when told he was making his debut. Picture by Damian Shaw

“I was buzzing but I had to keep a lid on it. He told me quietly in the corner at training before we went on the field. It was in the back of my mind all session.

“I went home and thought the news would come through the next day. Then my phone started ringing. It was in the other room so I came running out.

“It was an unknown number and I didn’t have Ivan’s number. I didn’t say too much — it was a blur.

“But when I put the phone down, I started crying. Since the age of five I was watching first-graders and being a footy head. When you get the call, I got really emotional.”

The dispensation was only supposed to be a short-term thing, with Kenny due to return back to Canterbury Cup a week later as clubs aren’t allowed to draft in players from outside their squad without NRL approval.

So Kenny wanted to soak it all in. He sat on the team bus at Bankwest Stadium, switched his phone off and immersed himself in a book. Studying to be an English teacher, Kenny said he reads “a fair few books”.

“I remember running up and down the sideline at Bankwest Stadium,” he said. “I kept looking around thinking, ‘This is unreal’.

“I was looking down at my jersey and saw my name and my debut was embroidered … then Junior Paulo steamrolled me.”

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The Panthers beat the Eels that night, 16-10, and the exemptions kept on coming for Kenny before a season-ending injury to Tim Grant opened up a spot in Penrith’s top 30.

Just last week he secured his future, inking a two-year deal with the club. He will again line up for the Panthers when they play New Zealand in Auckland on Sunday.

“The deal still doesn’t feel like it’s happened,” Kenny said.

“I try and have a look at the crowd whenever I’m running out at Panthers Stadium because I didn’t think I would play first grade. I’m living my dream.”