Penrith and Melbourne will meet on the last day of the 2024 NRL season, and it's clear the year couldn't have ended any other way.

They have arrived in different fashions: Melbourne's win over the Roosters on Friday was close to rugby league fine art – their attack was riotous, then free-wheeling, then decadent; conversely, Penrith's 26-6 win over Cronulla had all the hallmarks of greatness seen many times before.

It was yet another stirring performance from master playmaker Nathan Cleary, who had the last touch for Penrith's first three tries. Yet another busy display from Isaah Yeo, who always seems to find metres where nobody else can. Yet another showing of Dylan Edwards's endless appetite for work. And featured yet another player who has transformed since joining Penrith – centre Paul Alamoti scored two tries and delivered thunderous shots on Sione Katoa, like the Cronulla winger owed him money.

Cronulla were spirited but their execution failed. It is no small thing to stay in the fight with these Panthers for as long as they did but errors cruelled their chances, both in yardage and on the attack.

They worked hard for their only try of the evening, to Katoa, and trailed by four with 20 to go.

That is the winning time, but Penrith understand that better than anyone – an error on the set following the kick-off from Oregon Kaufusi gave the Panthers a little bit of ascendancy and once they get that they never let it go.

It was the most business-like of their five straight preliminary final victories, proof this team has a comprehensive understanding of just what is needed to win these games while still saving the very best of themselves for next week.

That's a harsh lesson Melbourne first taught them. 

The 2020 grand final was a long time ago now – boys have become men in the time since; Casey McLean, Penrith's 18th man against the Sharks, was just 14 when the Storm scored that famous upset.

That lesson changed the Panthers, teaching them about peaking at the right time, and about vengeance.

Their subsequent dominance has been built on weaponising their desperation to succeed and an addiction to victory, not just on the scoreboard at the end of a match but in every minute, every tackle, every second.

They were already good, but losing in 2020 delivered them to greatness, to the point where they can credibly call themselves the best team ever to play this game.

Ivan Cleary has spoken many times about how Melbourne's enduring commitment to excellence is a source of inspiration for his charges, and it was the chance to avenge that grand final loss to Melbourne that propelled them past the Storm in the 2021 prelim.

The question is, did that quell the bitter memory of defeat on a wet night at Stadium Australia four years ago? Or does the thirst for revenge remain?

That's what we're dealing with next Sunday. Melbourne must overcome this monster they inadvertently brought to life, while Penrith, having conquered every inch of this sport, are right back where they started, staring their creator in the eye.

Either way, this grand final will be the capstone on an era.

There's a generation of fans for whom this Penrith team are now the standard of greatness. To achieve such status, Penrith have been stretched to their limit in terms of regeneration and roster construction.

There are just eight players left at the club from that first grand final, but the mission and the method has never changed. This is still a side built on brutal defence, powerful yardage carries, Cleary's kicking game and that ravenous hunger mentioned above. 

Melbourne are another story. They are a very different team to 2020 and play a vastly different style. Their consistency and attacking excellence this season — personified in Jahrome Hughes, the best player in the league this year — has been a study in total maximisation on a technical level.

They are a varied side, with shining stars like Hughes, Harry Grant and Cameron Munster, rebuilt men like Ryan Papenhuyzen, and players who have come from far and wide to find the best version of themselves, like Eli Katoa and Josh King. All share an understanding of their role in the great Melbourne machine. 

The excellence of both sides is what makes the stakes on Sunday so high and fascinating — just the second grand final rematch of the NRL era.

Every win since 2020 has brought Penrith back to the beginning of their dynasty. Every change Melbourne has undergone has delivered them this chance to end it.

The contest feels inevitable, now.

And either Penrith will become just the fourth team in league history to win a fourth straight title and their case as the best team ever becomes even harder to deny.

Or the Storm prevails, becoming a crack in the circle the Panthers could not close.