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Why Penrith believe they can defy NRL history
George Clarke, AAP • August 27th, 2025 2:27 pm
Penrith coach Ivan Cleary says his team have given themselves every chance to battle for the title | Photo: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Why not us? After all but conceding their chances of a top-four finish are over, Penrith coach Ivan Cleary is daring his side to dream of becoming the first in the NRL era to win the grand final from the bottom half of the top eight.
Cleary has rested 16 first-grade regulars players boasting 1943 games of NRL experience and chosen to blood six debutants for Thursday's clash with Canterbury at Accor Stadium.
The Panthers coach explained on Wednesday that his decision was taken with a view to giving his key men a freshen-up ahead of their final-round match with St George Illawarra before attacking a finals series where they will not be afforded a week off.
Centre Paul Alamoti will be one of the few Panthers regulars in action against the Bulldogs | Photo: Morgan Hancock/AAP
Four-time defending premiers Penrith sit seventh heading into the penultimate match of the regular season and would need to beat the Dogs and the Dragons to stand a chance of making the top four.
They would also require the sides above them - the Warriors, Brisbane and Cronulla - to lose their remaining games.
With such a series of results appearing unlikely, Cleary is backing his side to go where no other has since the NRL era began in 1998 and win four knockout games to clinch the title from outside the top four.
But he says performances in recent narrow losses to Canberra and Melbourne and the Panthers' big-game experience proved the challenge is not insurmountable.
"I've always said that someone has to do it sometime," said Cleary.
"It certainly happens in other sports and I don't see why it can't happen in our sport.
"The last couple of weeks have given us confidence we can play better and our players will probably say the same thing.
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"We feel we're definitely capable. We have a lot of experience in finals games and the way our season has gone, I feel like we're in a good place to play well and given ourselves every chance to battle for the premiership."
In an indication of how tough the path ahead is for the Panthers, only two sides in the history of Australian rugby league - Brisbane (1993, fifth) and Canterbury (1995, sixth) have lifted the premiership from outside the top four.
Penrith, though, at least have experience of going the long way round en route to winning the last four NRL premierships.
In 2021 - the year their dynasty began - they finished second and lost to South Sydney in week one of the finals before winning two sudden-death finals and then exacting revenge on the Rabbitohs in the grand final.
The Panthers are drawing confidence from their surge to the 2021 title | Photo: Darren England/AAP
"It's a long time ago, but back in 2021 we lost the first final and won three when we were in all sorts of trouble injury-wise," Cleary said.
"Whereas at this moment, our squad is pretty good, touch wood.
"I think momentum is a big thing too in footy, and we just want to get ourselves as ready as we can be for that for when the finals start.
"This is one of those decisions I think will help."
Cleary's decision to rest his frontline stars prompted a huge swing in the betting markets as the Bulldogs take on a Panthers outfit which includes a handful of part-time players and are rated $8 outsiders.
Asked what gave him hope his side could get the job done, Cleary replied: "Rugby league's a funny game, you shouldn't bet on it by the way."
