Inside Penrith’s Matrix, Nathan Cleary is in total control

Craig Fitzgibbon said a couple of things after the match that he already knew well before it.

“They’re a team in the middle of a dynasty, and we’re a team in the middle of development,” was his appraisal of Saturday night’s gritty 26-6 loss. “There’s levels to it, and we’re not quite there yet.”

Even Fitzgibbon recognised he was operating in a system more advanced than Cronulla really had a chance to outmanoeuvre. That they can play Penrith, and possibly even play well, but still be spat out and forced to start again at level one.

Because even though they had a controller in their hands, the other team live inside the console.

The Panthers wrote the code to the computer game, down to every last structural play, so that the outcome was always going to be a fifth straight grand final.

Even when there were errors – and there were errors – they formed part of their own simulated reality, small robotic variations designed to appear as potentially course-altering deviations inflicted by the Sharks.

Even during the first half when Ivan Cleary got busy with his walkie-talkie in the coaches box, trying to iron out the atypical wrinkles which had crept into his side’s game as Cronulla held on under lights and constant drizzle, the result was somehow predestined.

Saturday’s preliminary final always belonged to the Panthers.Credit: Getty Images

And even when Fitzgibbon marched back into his own box fresh off delivering a half-time pep talk when the score was still 10-2 and on paper there was not much in it (in reality they were gassed and dropping passes), each stride was still one inexorable step towards a loss.

Because Ivan is only a theatrical earpiece away from becoming Agent Smith, while Craig is still deciding whether to take the red pill or the blue pill, and this version of the Matrix does not end well for Mr Anderson.

And it does not matter that Braydon Trindall went into the game with a marginally superior try-involvement average to Nathan Cleary over the course of their respective appearances this season.

Or that Trindall is the hottest new thing and effectively Cronulla’s No.7 right now, and that his future could yet feature some Cleary-esque moments.

It does not matter because Cleary is the main character in this game. He collects all the right weapons and bits of armour so is always ready for combat even when he is not.

Even his left shoulder is not really a shoulder in the human anatomy sense of the word, with flesh and bone and a glenohumeral joint suffering subluxation.

It is more cyborg, holding up when the occasion calls, playing its pivotal part by setting up three of Penrith’s four tries and kicking a 40/20 to go with his four goals from five attempts.

This grand final was always going to be a rematch of 2020.Credit: Getty Images

And yes, that shoulder – with its mix of the organic and biomechatronic – will be a central talking point for the next seven days. Everyone will analyse Cleary’s self-assessment of his late scare against the Sharks as “just a bit of a knock”, and the entire team will field yet more questions about its capacity to contribute to a four-peat.

And if he will be figuratively matched up against Melbourne counterpart Jahrome Hughes, whose hat-trick of tries against the Roosters on Friday may have iced his Dally M cake by the time he runs out at Accor Stadium on Sunday night.

That is not because the Sharks have not had a successful season, and did not produce perhaps their strongest performance in recent history against the NRL’s current hegemon.

It is because they were aiming for a fifth grand final, period, and Penrith were aiming for a fifth consecutive. Cronulla’s team on Saturday had five games of preliminary and grand-final experience; Penrith’s possessed 77.

If the Dragons’ dominance of the 1950s and ’60s remains unmatched, and South Sydney rewrote some of the code over the following several years, these Panthers are doing something that arguably should not be possible under a salary cap.

You could have predicted this grand final match-up back in round one, and again at numerous junctures throughout the year, and the Storm’s 48-18 smothering of the Roosters was a strong signal this decider will be tight.

The main questions around this 2020 grand final rematch lie in the discrepancies within their own computer program. Will the absence of Cameron Smith this time around make a difference?

Will Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s almost-certain suspension leave their forward pack bereft, and can Ryan Papenhuyzen make himself worthy of another Clive Churchill Medal? Or is Cleary about to do that again, even with his bunged-up cyborg shoulder?

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