As the second half kicked off in the Panthers’ 28-6 season opening win over the Sea Eagles, there was a familiar sound at the scoreboard end of Bluebet Stadium.
It was one of the great sounds: the noise of a crowd moving with the flow of the game, the buzz of a lot of drunk people in one place at the same time, watching but not watching, chatting, decompressing, enjoying.
It could have been anywhere, but it was Penrith this time. This is what we’ve missed, in New South Wales at least.
The Panthers beat the Sea Eagles. Footy’s back too, which you also know, but it’s worth repeating. Footy – the real, on the ground, behind the sticks, in-person version – is back.
From the foothills of the Blue Mountains in March to Manchester and the World Cup Final in November, this is us. Here we go.
Penrith Panthers 28 – 6 Manly Sea Eagles
When you’re gone, how can I even try to go on
Penrith wasn’t favourite to win this match. You might want to read that again.
Without Nathan Cleary, they are obviously depleted, because alongside his obvious talent, Cleary brings intangible qualities like leadership, control and confidence that flows outwards to the rest of the team.
I’m not an intangibles guy: I prefer tangibles, like skill and tactics, above things you can’t see and might not really matter that much. But Cleary is a master of intangibles.
Comparing Sean O’Sullivan to Nathan Cleary is like comparing me to Geoffrey Moorhouse: we kind of look the same and sound the same, and we sort of do the same job, but one is manifestly a lot better at it than the other.
Sean O’Sullivan’s role tonight was to do a good enough impression of Nathan Cleary that the rest of the team believed he was there and played accordingly.
O’Sullivan was proof that coaching in rugby league is everything: he knew exactly what he needed to do and was backed to do a task that fitted his skillset. It’s a systems sport and O’Sullivan knew his role in Penrith’s.
If you dropped him in the Bulldogs, he’d probably look rubbish, and if you dropped Kyle Flanagan in this team and had Ivan Cleary giving him the instructions, he’d probably look this good too. That’s why you have a coach.
While the replacement 7 didn’t create much, he kicked impeccably – just ask Jason Saab’s ribs – and created space for the rest to take centre stage.
Jarome Luai was the ringleader in chief, emerging from the shadows of Cleary to take ownership that frankly, he’s not really needed to take before. Luai was himself, ever confident and darting, but more so, expanding to fill the space vacated by his partner.
Isaah Yeo played his role too, like a basketball swingman bringing the two sides of the field together. He’s the passer Jake Trbojevic thinks he is when he closes his eyes in bed at night.
The Panthers’ superiority was built in the forwards, and manifested in the backs – tries for Stephen Crichton and Izack Tago, not to mention a few wiped off – but it was the connection that made it: Luai, Yeo and O’Sullivan.
Panthers put Saab up on bricks
There’s a theory that the analytics people like that the best way to judge a game at the moment is kick return metres. Penrith won that by 292 metres to 80.
It’s easy to aftertime, of course, but the obvious differentiating factor for Penrith Panthers last season was the length by which they dominated that particular metric. If you’re aware of who Brian To’o is, you probably don’t need it explaining to you.
The other side of the kick return metres coin is Jason Saab. It’s not that he’s not good at returning the ball, though he is a bit lightweight, it’s that Penrith simply didn’t give him the chance to accumulate any.
They dropped the ball behind Saab when possible and on top of him when not. Reuben Garrick barely fielded a ball all night.
That static start had two effects. First, it killed momentum stone dead and made Manly fight for everything from their goal line forwards.
Second, it meant that Tom Trbojevic inevitably took one of the first carries in the set, tiring him out and allowing the Panthers to line him up. He does too much work for his own good at times.
The net result was that five times in the first half, Manly kicked from within their own 40m. Twice from in their own 20m. It’s no way to win a football match.
On what looked like it would be the sixth deep kick of the first half, mere seconds before the break, Jake Trbojevic dummied the line and ended up through.
Break the line and strike is where Manly come into their own. It went Kieran Foran to Turbo Tom to Ethan Bullemor, half the field in a flash. Give them an inch and they take a yard. They have it, and they’ll show it, but not too often against the likes of Penrith.
That incident stood as something of a microcosm of why Manly will batter a lot of teams but lose to good ones.
They can be suffocated by good kicking and solid tackling, but most of the NRL can’t do that half as well as Penrith can. If the Sea Eagles get space, they’re lethal, even against the likes of Penrith, even when getting soundly beaten.
Manly can only win one way and Penrith can win lots of ways. But I guess we already knew that, right?