Taking nothing away from Penrith’s back-to-back firsts – this grand final display was brutal, clinical and ruthless as the men in black put on a display that looked like they had been programmed to the millisecond to peak on the first Sunday in October . .
Panthers props Moses Leota and James Fisher-Harris acted like they were straight from the core cast of Fight Club, Dylan Edwards was a well-deserved winner of the Clive Churchill Medal and Nathan Cleary confirmed he is about to be celebrated as one of the game’s all-time great halfbacks. .
For all the credit the Panthers deserve, there is no doubt that one of the biggest stories of the game was the spectacular fold of the Parramatta Eels.
Eels fans were rightly at the game, making up around 80% of the sell-out crowd at Accor Stadium, but the team did not repay their faith.
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If the Panthers were tuned to the millisecond, the Eels looked like a side completely spooked by the occasion.
While everything Penrith touched turned to gold, everything the eels touched quickly turned to dust.
The trick play early on to try and catch Dylan Edwards out of position on a Dylan Brown chip kick was a calculated risk. failed
The ploy to try to get Reed Mahoney to Cleary on fifth-inning options only worked once outside the first set of the game.
Maika Sivo probably scores that second-half try nine times out of ten.
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In the run-up to the game, there were headlines about Parramatta halfback Mitch Moses potentially becoming the game’s highest-paid player.
Not about what the Eels creator delivered on the NRL’s biggest stage.
In fairness to Moses and Parramatta five-eighth Dylan Brown, it’s hard to play off the back foot when your front pack is steamrolling.
But big halves like Andrew Johns or Cooper Cronk still find a way.
The Panthers’ forward pack simply ran harder and tackled harder, with the line speed of back-to-back firsts constantly pinning the Eels in their own half.
Was it Fool’s Gold the Eels making the grand final? No, they earned their chance at the Panthers with emphatic wins over Canberra and North Queensland after finishing in the top four.
But there is no doubt that the club’s approach to treating the grand final like any other game was a spectacular failure.
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The last time a Parramatta side took this approach was in 2001, when the Eels had broken all sorts of records on their way to the GF.
The only problem was that the Eels were completely ambushed by Andrew Johns, Ben Kennedy and Danny Buderus as Newcastle blew them off the park to win the club’s second premiership.
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The hardest part for Eels fans to digest will be where does the club go from here?
Because with Mahoney, Isaiah Papali’i and Marata Niukore leaving the club, it’s hard to see how they’ll improve next year.
Parramatta coach Brad Arthur deserved credit for piloting the Eels to their first grand final in 13 seasons and having them consistently in the top eight for the past four seasons.
But the Eels who hold the title of the NRL’s longest premiership drought still exist and after the grand final performance it looks like they may have missed their golden opportunity.
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