You know…I couldn’t have put it any better than the Sydney Morning Herald did in reviewing the game. So I’m going to let them take over for a moment:
MITCHELL Pearce scored a miracle try right on full-time to get the Roosters home in his first meeting with Craig Gower since their infamous flare-up at a Sunshine Coast golf resort in 2005.
Last time Gower got so close to Pearce, he was chasing him with a beer bottle. Gower didn’t attempt to grope Mitchell’s sister, or commit any of the other offences he was accused of at the Sunshine Coast debacle which cost him the captaincy for a season. But he was again left with plenty of regrets after Pearce ran 90 metres to score the match-winner with 30 seconds left on the clock. Gower, who equalled Panthers legend Greg Alexander’s mark of 227 first-grade games, had lost possession. He was inconsolable afterwards.
And so once again, the Panthers lose, and to the team sitting last on the ladder.
Thats the Penrith Panthers. They are terrible. They are pathetic. They are no good.
As a Panthers supporter, I’m just numb to it these days. I’m not surprised and I’m not hurt by these losses. I just don’t feel anything any more.
The Sydney Morning Herald has quite a bit of Panthers coverage today and one interesting piece was a look at the lack of movement on the player market by Penrith after their big talking earlier this year about targeting high profile players to join the club.
In March Matthew Elliott was quoted as saying “we are going to go and recruit the two best players we can find”.
The Panthers have signed Newcastle Knights Brad Tighe and Adam Woolnough since then and lost Test prop Joel Clinton and the clubs best halfback in Peter Wallace to the Brisbane Broncos in the same time frame.
In response to this Elliott was quoted today as saying:
“I said we’re in the market for the best players we can get but we’re like everyone else, we have to abide by the salary cap,” Elliott said.
“We’ve got some young players that have come through here and we have to invest in those guys – guys like Michael Jennings and Geoff Daniela and Junior Moors.
“There’s not a whole heap of quality players out there, though.”
However since first saying the club wanted to target two star players, Brent Tate, Timana Tahu, Travis Burns, Adam Dykes, Shaun Berrigan, Mark O’Meley, Wes Naiqama, Danny Wicks, Michael Monaghan, Chris Flannery and Jamie Sowart have all singed a contract for 2008 with a different club.
Petero Civoneceva, Justin Hodges, Dane Carlaw, Paul Whatuira and Brett Hodgson are just a few Origin players I can name off the top of my head who are still without a club for 2008.
This is Penrith though! You cant expect anything good to happen at the club because if you do, you will be disappointed every time.
The entire club, from top to bottom is just one big mess. There is no club in the game right now that is ran worse than Penrith.
The above is just more proof.
Matthew Elliott left Bradford and they won titles in Super League after he left. He went to Canberra and every single player of any quality left the club. He gutted a once great team and made they play so poorly the Canberra faithful just stopped turning up to games.
Now, the first season he has gone…and the Raiders are playing great football and the crowds are back in the nations capital.
On that back of his record, a very poor record, the Panthers game him a 3 year deal with reportedly over $1,000,000!
Maybe its time the club went out of its way to spend a bit of cash one some decent players, because our coach is floundering with the current group and if we have to wait 2 and a half more years for him to leave, the club will be lucky to be able to drag 17 players together worthy of a Premier League game, let alone an NRL start.
