Add Category
After winning back-to-back premierships, reaching three straight grand finals, and topping the ladder two of the past three years, it could be easy to say it's job done for the Penrith Panthers.
There's a reason no team won two in a row for the first two decades of the NRL era. And there's a reason that the two teams that have done it in the past five years — the Roosters and Panthers — are two of the best organisations in the league.
But Penrith's dominance — losing just one regular season game before being stunned by the well-drilled, experienced Melbourne Storm in the 2020 grand final, then turning that heartache into steely resolve to win the 2021 and 2022 titles — has been as impressive as anything we've seen on a rugby league field this century.
At full strength, they're basically untouchable, even for the best teams in the competition.
Just looking at their six home-and-away losses in their premiership seasons, only Parramatta's two wins earlier this year were against something resembling a full-strength line-up. The rest came from unrecognisable Panthers teams, depleted by either State of Origin duty or resting stars late in the season.
When Melbourne beat them 16-0 in round 20 this year, pundits hailed not only a return to form for one of the few teams to have beaten the Panthers since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but also used it as proof gods can bleed.
Never mind the absence of Nathan Cleary, Jarome Luai, James Fisher-Harris, Dylan Edwards and Taylan May, like fighting Muhammad Ali in his prime or meeting Michael Jordan in the finals, teams were getting praised for even getting close. Anything to make believe the quest for the premiership is anything other than a one-horse race.
But of course, as we know now and most of us knew then, it wasn't.
Penrith got their superstars back in time for the finals, even if May got whacked by the karma police after the NRL's widely criticised rule-bending to allow him to play, and powered past the Eels and Rabbitohs (two teams who had beaten them in the past two years) to get back to the mountaintop as convincingly as possible.
Winning all four grades
What people may have missed if they only clocked on for the 80 minutes between kick-off and the final siren in the men's decider is that Penrith's success runs much deeper than the 17 that took down the Eels on Sunday night.
The under-18 SG Ball Cup, under-20 Jersey Flegg Cup and second-grade NSW Cup are all also safely in Penrith's hands, plus interstate supremacy, with the NSW Cup team hammering Queensland champs Norths Devils 44-10 in the State Championship on Sunday.
So while it may seem fast, it makes perfect sense with this rarely seen level of success that Penrith is already being talked about as one of the greatest teams in the modern era.
The one thing other great NRL sides like the Broncos, Roosters and Storm currently have over them is longevity, and the Panthers appear well placed to put together similar eight or 10-year runs to match those dynastic sides.
Tigers-bound hooker Api Koroisau was diplomatic when asked after the grand final if this Panthers outfit was the best side of the past 20 years, saying he would leave it up to others to make those comparisons.
"Leading up to his game it was business as usual and we acknowledged what people might say if we won or lost, but at the end of the day you're going out there and playing footy like you do every week. You work your arse off and you do what you get paid to do," he said.
"They can say what they say, but the important thing is the feeling in this team right now. This is why we play this game."
The State Championship game gave us perhaps the best glimpse into the Panthers' immediate NRL future, with Soni Luke scoring one try, laying on three more, running for 80 metres out of dummy half and just generally running the show.
Fans will get a good look at him with Tonga at the World Cup before he's expected to settle in as Koroisau's replacement at the Panthers in 2023.
However Ivan Cleary decides to handle that — giving him the number nine to start, easing him in off the bench or some combination of the two — you would be a fool to bet against the Penrith coaching staff mishandling the 26-year-old's arrival in first grade.
Also expect to see more of exciting outside back Sunia Turuva, who has shone in outings for Fiji and shown glimpses in three top-flight Penrith games this year.
He scored three tries and ran for 500 metres across the NSW Cup grand final and the State Championship. All from the wing, which may not even be his best position.
Repping the West and the Pacific
Most of the NRL champions interviewed after the grand final mentioned winning all four grades, the strength of the club's culture, repping the West, or all three. Those connections run as deep as the success this organisation is having.
Centre Stephen Crichton said the younger players join the first-grade squad twice a week, strengthening that bond between the current stars and the back-ups and juniors gunning for their spots.
And the NRL players were as pleased as anyone when it became clear everyone was going to have a grand final day.
"[The strong culture is] not made up, it's not manufactured, the coaches didn't have to do too much to get it going," Koroisau said.
"We have all these guys from different backgrounds and they just get together so well."
And while there are players from all sorts of cultural backgrounds, one club is particularly well represented.
Both Luke and Turuva are Pacific Islanders from St Marys, so you can bet they'll have an extra strong connection with guys like Jarome Luai, Brian To'o, Moses Leota, Izack Tago and Christian Crichton.
Those ready-made and intentionally fostered connections will be vital in coming years because Penrith's success is also coming back to bite them in typical salary cap manner.
Key cogs like back-rower Viliame Kikau and veteran Koroisau are heading for more lucrative but likely less victorious pastures in Canterbury and Concord respectively.
Young Tongan star Isaiya Katoa and handy recruit Sean O'Sullivan have been snapped up by the league's 17th team in Redcliffe, and they'll watch former development player J'maine Hopgood ply his trade for this year's runners-up.
Penrith higher-ups have complained that the club is getting punished for its success, losing players they have turned into stars, but you could just as easily say, like missing mid-season games for State of Origin duty, this is just rewards for those stars playing key roles in championship runs.
This team is also less littered with in-demand stars than some previous dynastic sides, which should make their success slightly easier to maintain, even as rivals pay overs to get a taste of that Penrith magic.
Nathan Cleary is somehow still only 24 and the best half in the game, so they've locked him up on a fat contract through 2027. His co-captain, Isaah Yeo, halves partner Jarome Luai and Clive Churchill medallist fullback Dylan Edwards are all signed for two more seasons. And star prop James Fisher-Harris is signed through 2026.
That's a lot of talent to have locked in before their prices really skyrocket on the back of more Penrith success.
None of those players will be older than 30 by the time those contracts expire, and with NRL careers lasting longer than ever, that's not even that old nowadays.
Add to that the wealth of talent that is clearly waiting in the wings, and we'd best get used to the Chocolate Soldiers marching from Mt Druitt to Homebush for a few more Septembers yet.