Penrith played the best game I’ve ever seen. And they’re getting better every week

April 9, 2026 — 3:30am

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Penrith’s demolition of Melbourne on Friday night is undoubtedly the single best performance I have ever seen.

Frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was watching. And then you consider who the Panthers were actually playing. The Storm completed 34 of 36 sets (completion rate 94 per cent) and still had 50 points put on them.

Penrith are now the first team in history to win their first five games of the season by 20 points or more, and again, consider who they’ve not just beaten, but thrashed.

Brisbane, Cronulla, the Roosters, Eels and Melbourne – most people would have four of these teams contending for the top four or preliminary finals, but none of them have got close to the Panthers.

Still, premierships aren’t won in April. Penrith still have to get through 19 more games, an Origin series and at least a couple of finals. The team that always stands out to me in this regard is Manly in 1995.

The Sea Eagles just looked unbeatable all season and only lost two games that year … until grand final day.

The Bulldogs completely ambushed them in the game that matters most, beat them 17-4, and Terry Lamb retired with a title.

So, why are Penrith so dominant, and so far ahead of the competition right now?

How Penrith have changed the game again

The most significant change I’ve seen from the Panthers is in attack, and it’s been timed perfectly to take advantage of a quicker ruck speed right across the NRL and the new rules around set restarts.

This time last season, Penrith were struggling and had thrown 13 offloads in five rounds. This year, they’ve thrown 50. And not for the first time, when every NRL team is doing things one way, coach Ivan Cleary has the Panthers ahead of the game and playing differently.

So far this season, we’re seeing Nathan Cleary and Isaah Yeo playing with far less structure as Penrith build their sets.

Compare last Friday’s game plan against the Storm to the 2024 grand final, when the Panthers outlasted Melbourne in what was the definition of a modern arm wrestle – dummy-half runs, kicking to the corners and strangling the life out of the opposition.

This year, Penrith are still using their outside backs like Dylan Edwards and Brian To’o to churn through yardage and get them out of trouble. But Cleary and Yeo are playing significantly flatter and passing right at the advantage line.

And then when the offloads come, they’re taking advantage of that early ball movement and getting their back-rowers and outside backs into one-on-one tackles: in five games, Penrith have already scored nine tries from their own half.

At the very least, Penrith are getting quick play-the-balls in these situations, and that’s when Cleary and Yeo strike, and put on those set plays where every player knows their role to perfection.

Think about how other teams plan their games – where those structured plays come first before the ad-lib footy to try and crack a defence. This Penrith team is going with the ad-lib, offload-focused play first, and then landing the knockout blow with their structured play.

The last-second, front-rower’s scrum scramble

On the other side of the ball, Penrith’s defence is rock solid, as usual. Inside their own 20-metre zone they’re the toughest team to crack – it takes an average of almost 24 red-zone tackles before the opposition scores a try.

They’re just so incredibly fit and focused. Last year they came out of that epic semi-final loss against Brisbane and Nathan Cleary said that for the first time Penrith had found an opposition that was fitter than them. Do you think that might’ve been in the back of their minds all summer?

Of the other 16 clubs chasing them, the Broncos are still the one team that could worry the Panthers. Reece Walsh, Ezra Mam, Payne Haas and Kotoni Staggs all possess the kind of X-factor to challenge Penrith, and Brisbane certainly have a few more gears left in them.

But the Panthers’ scramble defence is the best in the NRL, and we saw why in the last play last Friday night, when they had already scored 50 points and pulverised Melbourne.

Storm centre Manaia Waitere had half a chance with four seconds left on the clock from a scrum play.

Half-a-dozen Panthers rushed in and shut him down, and covering on the inside, still staying alive in the 80th minute was 194-centimetre, 106-kilo prop Lindsay Smith, who had packed into the front row of the scrum. That says it all about this Penrith side.

The Next Gen and a 10-year Origin player

The Panthers are just so stable from top to bottom – in the club’s front office, in Ivan Cleary’s coaches box and in their key positions on the field. Even when they lose players and assistant coaches, their style, their systems and that Penrith DNA just keeps them on top.

Against Melbourne their basic catch-and-pass skills stood out to me – they never get bored with the fundamentals, and that turns into the precision and perfection we saw last week.

Right throughout their junior systems, young players are coached in the Panthers style and they progress through the grades learning those systems. Then they arrive in first grade where Nathan Cleary is in complete control of his game and the team, and players like Blaize Talagi and Casey McLean just thrive.

McLean is still only 19 and growing into his body. I’ve always thought he was a great prospect, but he’s arriving very quickly.

He’s 97 kilos now, he’ll be well over 100 kilos in a few years time, and already his combination of all that balance, speed and power as a teenager is amazing. As McLean matures, I think we’ll be looking at a once-in-a-generation player.

Luckily, those Origin eligibility rules have him lining up for NSW. It may not be this year for McLean, though. I still think there are some defensive issues in his game and I have Latrell Mitchell and Bradman Best ahead of him at left centre.

But he has played on the left wing for New Zealand, and that may be where he gets his Blues debut.

Good luck Bulldogs, you’ll need it

Canterbury are obviously struggling in attack and against the best defence in the NRL, I’m just not sure where their points come from on Thursday night.

McLean and Talagi are an inexperienced edge and I expect this is where the Bulldogs will target. Jacob Preston lines up outside Lachlan Galvin on that side, too.

But I see Penrith doing the exact same thing when they’re in attack – targeting Galvin with Isaiah Papali’i and McLean as ball runners. They’ll raise his tackle count and try to dull the young halfback’s attack with a mountain of defence.

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The Panthers know Canterbury’s key men – Matt Burton and Viliame Kikau – as well as anyone; they know their strengths and weaknesses and can plot out how to handle them. And really, how many tries do the Bulldogs have in them right now? Two or three at most.

But Penrith are just in such formidable form, they could raise the bat for another 50 points again.

Joey’s tip: Panthers by 20

First try scorer: Tom Jenkins

Man of the match: Nathan Cleary

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