Way out west of Sydney at the foot of the Blue Mountains resides a community with a strong passion for the game and their club. Founded in 1967, it took until 1985 before making it into a finals series. Royce Simmons as a former player (238 first grade matches for the Panthers) was the coach from 1994 until 2001, a total of 187 matches. His coaching career wasn't stellar (41% win record) but they stuck with him.
After collecting the wooden spoon in 2001, in came John Lang from Cronulla. After a slow start to 2002, momentum built and in 2003 Penrith took the league (minor premiership) and grand final. It slipped from there and ended in 2006. In came Matthew Elliott and after getting the wooden spoon (again in 2006) built nicely for the second place in the league. It wasn't sustained and after Steve Georgallis finished the season for Matt, Ivan Cleary arrived from a successful stint at the NZ Warriors.
Apart from 2014, it wasn't hugely a profitable time at the club so Anthony Griffin was engaged in 2016. The results were good but a falling out led to his departure in late 2018. Ivan Cleary was welcomed back in 2019 and has done good things with the team.
The Origin series rattled them in 2021, losing many players to that competition. As Australian clubs whinge about losing players for international matches, the silence is deafening when it comes to a domestic competition doing the same thing. It comes down to what you value and what you don't.
The last four years have been super consistent, managing Origin better and improving the depth of the squad working to keep them at the top of the pile. They are the new Melbourne Storm and with a strong junior programme should be able to maintain this.
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