A pair of emphatic preliminary final performances leaves the two best teams in the premiership to contest the 2023 NRL grand final.
Penrith and Brisbane blew their opponents away on the weekend, but the Warriors head into the off-season confident of sustained success while Melbourne has the look of a heavyweight on the wane.
Perfect Panthers one step from history
Penrith is one win away from the first premiership threepeat in 40 years, which would be an extraordinary achievement in the era of salary cap-influenced parity.
The Panthers are already in rarefied air by reaching a fourth straight decider: St George (1956-66), South Sydney (1967-71), Parramatta (1981-84) and cap-flouting Melbourne (2006-09) are the only clubs in the compulsory grand final era to make it four years in a row.
They’re also the first team since the Dragons won 11 straight premierships to rack up eight consecutive finals victories.
Following up their 32-6 qualifying defeat of the Warriors with a 38-4 dismantling of Melbourne in Friday’s prelim, the Panthers are putting together one of the most dominant finals series ever…but the effervescent Brisbane Broncos’ foray, thumping the same teams, has been equally impressive.
The grand final looms as a mouth-watering contrast of styles – and the Panthers’ $1.62 favourite’s price reflects how competitive the decider is shaping up to be.
Penrith will lean on a massive grand final experience advantage, set to field 11 players who celebrated in the 2021-22 triumphs (nine of whom also played in the 2020 grand final). Until last weekend, Adam Reynolds and Kurt Capewell were the only Broncos who had even featured in a prelim.
Nathan Cleary has hit top gear in the playoffs and is the red-hot $3.75 favourite to claim his second Clive Churchill Medal, followed by Reece Walsh ($6.00), Adam Reynolds ($7.50), 2022 winner Dylan Edwards ($9.00), and workhorses Payne Haas ($10), Isaah Yeo ($17) and Patrick Carrigan ($17).
Brash Broncos eye off ultimate challenge
In an era dominated by the clinical ruthlessness and system-based football of Penrith, Melbourne and Sydney Roosters, Brisbane’s exuberant brilliance has been a breath of fresh air.
In the club’s first finals series in four years, a side overwhelming lacking in playoffs experience has passed two post-season tests with honours – backing up a 26-0 shutout of bogey team the Storm with a 42-12 dismantling of the sentimental favourite Warriors at a sold-out Suncorp Stadium.
The Broncos’ scintillating attack – from anywhere on the field – left the Warriors grasping at thin air, piling on four tries in 16 minutes during the first half and hitting the accelerator again in the second stanza with three tries 15 minutes following a lengthy 24-12 stalemate.
Reece Walsh took another swaggering step towards rugby league megastardom, torching his former club with six line-break assists and three try assists. Payne Haas (228 metres, one line-break, 33 tackles) won his heavyweight showdown with Addin Fonua-Blake by unanimous decision in a scorecard blowout.
Whether the Broncos’ high-octane, high-risk, high-reward style will hold up against one of the most miserly defensive units of the modern era shapes as the biggest poser ahead of the grand final, however.
The offloads won’t flow as smoothly, Walsh and co. won’t receive the same level of free rein the half-chances the Broncos are so adept at convert will present far less frequently up against the Panthers.
Meanwhile, there were a couple of danger signs without the ball for the Broncos, who were fairly easily outstripped on both wings during the Warriors’ rare visits to their goal-line. The Panthers’ offence inside the 20-metre zone is as slick as it gets with wingers To’o and Turuva scoring seven tries between them in two finals matches.
Storm at crossroads
Melbourne’s extraordinary long-term consistent success – reaching the top four and a prelim for the eighth time in nine seasons – meant anything less than a grand final appearance was destined to be regarded as at least a mild disappointment.
The Storm were hammered by the Broncos and Panthers either side of a last-gasp escape against a busted Roosters outfit that had been running on sudden-death fumes for six weeks. Consequently, the mood around the perennial heavyweights feels flatter than their shock elimination final exit in 2022.
In a carbon copy of week one, the Storm were destroyed through the middle and resorted to conceding penalties as they tried in vain to slow the Panthers pack’s relentless roll. Their goal-line resistance was severely lacking in one of the most one-sided preliminary finals in many years.
Centres Marion Seve and Justin Olam were badly exposed, while fullback Nick Meaney’s superb season finished with a forgettable display and talisman Cam Munster had no answer to Penrith’s suffocating pressure.
Ryan Papenhuyzen’s return from another injury setback will be pivotal to the Storm’s 2024 chances. But with the focus on retention and re-signings rather than recruitment, it’s debatable whether there’s enough engine-room strength and depth to compete with the NRL’s new heavy hitters.
Wahs fairytale ends, long-term revival just beginning
Rookie coach Andrew Webster has engineered one of the great NRL turnarounds in little over 10 months stationed in Auckland, leading the Warriors from second-last misery at the end of a three-year COVID odyssey to the club’s first top-four finish in 16 years and a rare preliminary final appearance.
But heavy playoff losses to Penrith and Brisbane – either side of an unforgettable semi-final rout at a jam-packed Mt Smart Stadium – were confirmation the Warriors are a step or two (and maybe a top-shelf player or two) away from contending for an elusive maiden premiership.
The Warriors showed typical spirit on Saturday night, making a fast start and gamely staying in the fight until midway through the second half. But they struggled to keep up with the Broncos’ sizzling speed and skill, conceding a tidal wave of offloads and line-breaks to fall 24-8 behind on their way to a 42-12 defeat.
Led by Webster, indefatigable skipper Tohu Harris and beloved linchpin Shaun Johnson, the Warriors were all class in the wake of a jarring – and at-times controversial – loss that closed the book on one of the great New Zealand sporting stories.
The challenge ahead will be backing up their watershed season when success is expected and the electrifying groundswell of support and emotion around the club simmers down. North Queensland and Cronulla endured sharp downturns this year after breakout top-four campaigns in 2022.
But with Webster helming a cultural revolution at the club, and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Chanel Harris-Tavita returning to help a revitalised Johnson embark on one last crack at premiership glory, Warriors fans have every reason to enjoy a summer glazed in optimism.
Forward pass howler to prompt overdue change
The tipping point for changing one of the code’s most contentious officiating issues arrived at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
Jordan Riki’s 54th-minute try that broke the Warriors’ resolve featured a forward pass from Reece Walsh that has to rank among the most flagrant witnessed in a big match – perhaps any match – in rugby league’s televised era.
While it seems preposterous referee Gerard Sutton and his touch judges couldn’t detect the gridiron-esque trajectory of Walsh’s pass and may (should?) cost them a grand final gig, it’s time to hand adjudication for forward passes back to the bunker for the greater good.
The move would inevitably create controversial moments, but it would also eliminate howlers such as the one that cruelled the Warriors.
As it stands, one of the most fundamental parts of rugby league – but also one of the hardest to rule on in real time – is being unfairly foisted on refs and touchies while every other facet of the game is subject to rigorous video replay scrutiny.
Peter V’landys’ willingness to investigate giving the bunker power to rule on forward passes from 2024 is a clear indication it’s likely to happen.
Meanwhile, the NRL holds its breath hoping a similar shocker doesn’t swing Sunday’s grand final.