NRL 2021: Penrith Panthers Season Review

The Penrith Panthers entered the 2021 NRL season with sky-high expectations and still managed to exceed them and lift the Provan-Summons Trophy.

Here’s your Penrith Panthers Season Review for 2021:

• The Season In Brief: Stats and Summary
• Takeaways From 2021
  • Things I Liked: Trick shots, James Fisher-Harris, Nathan Cleary
  • 3-2-1: Dylan Edwards, Viliame Kikau, Isaah Yeo
  • Summer Notepad: Backline shaping up
• Preseason Prediction Throwback
• Way Too Early Thoughts On 2022

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The Season In Brief

We’re summing up the NRL season in a few words before getting into the nitty-gritty and breaking down some of the key moments in 2021.

By The Numbers

Defence wins premierships and the Penrith Panthers played with one of the best in NRL history. While Penrith’s 25.6 points per game ranked 4th in the competition, they had some down periods with the ball. However, a defence conceding just 11.6 points per game allowed the Panthers to work through those down periods and come out with a win more often than not. Possession and pressure defined 2021 for the premiers. An NRL-high 1,805 running metres per game translated into 31.5 tackles inside the opposition 20-metre line. If Penrith wasn’t scoring, they rolled it into the in-goal for 2.2 forced dropouts per game on their way to 52.2% possession.

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The Season In 200 Words

They were the team everyone loved in 2020 and the team everyone loved to hate in 2021, but no matter where you sit there’s no denying the quality of the Penrith Panthers this year. 

Nathan Cleary was superb every time he took the field. It’s death by a thousand cuts from the 24-year-old halfback – his kicking game is the best in the business and his ballplaying and feel for the game is top shelf. He consistently took the right options in attack and ensured Penrith played from in front for most of the season. 

James Fisher-Harris and Isaah Yeo are two more notable members of Penrith’s premiership-winning squad in 2021. Both men led from the front every week and were arguably the best in the competition in their respective positions this season. It terrifies me to learn Fisher-Harris is still only 25 years old – he is going to be a premier prop for many years to come. 

Tevita Pangai Jr was an astute pickup in a time of need, Matt Burton provided top-tier quality cover in the centres or halves and the likes of Brian To’o, Stephen Crichton and Jarome Luai provided moments of brilliance when needed.

The Panthers were well-deserving premiers in 2021.

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Takeaways From 2021

Things I Liked

Jason picks out a few moments, matches or players that he liked most throughout the 2021 NRL season.

Trick shots

The Penrith Panthers started the season by running up scores and working on their trick shots. Winning 12 on the bounce to open 2021, they were given time on the field to try out some of the actions they had played around with at training.

These plays didn’t come off every time. This one ends up with Brian To’o scoring in the corner but it’s far from perfect. Still, you can see that it’s not a stock standard block shape.

First, Mitch Kenny attempts to drag the defence with a tempoed run out of dummy half. He switches the play through Issah Yeo before Jarome Luai plays to Matt Burton who attempts to throw the ball across his body to Viliame Kikau. Kikau sees the jamming defence and leaves the ball to float past him and To’o does the rest.

The Burton portion may not have been planned, but the setup is a little bit different. We don’t see teams looking to switch the play so quickly like that very often. It’s one to watch out for again in 2022.

The evolution of Nathan Cleary’s new no-look pass was fascinating. His first attempt in Round 4 didn’t do much to the defensive line. He didn’t get deep enough in his run to engage the line and the defence simply slid across the field to make the tackle. However, it piqued my interest.

It returned in Round 7, and this time, Burton was able to skip through a gap. Jacob Saifiti leaves the line to put pressure on Cleary and leaves a hole in the defence. It doesn’t end in points, but the idea to get Luai onto the outside of his man starts to come to fruition.

Round 9 is when it all came together.

Cleary takes possession, uses Kikau as a decoy underneath and Liam Martin short. The deception of where he is facing and by hiding the ball behind his body holds up the defence in the middle and Luai takes the ball on the outside of his man. The Sharks defence can’t scramble in time, and with Briton Nikora one of the players slow to slide after holding on Martin and Kikau, Burton is through the gap to score.

But the Panthers saved the best for second-to-last.

James Tedesco exposed a frailty in the Storm defensive line back in Round 6 when he hung one up for Matt Ikuvalu on 1st-tackle. Josh Addo-Carr is one of the fastest players in the NRL and he trusts his speed. He closes the space on a shift and makes the right decisions more often than not. However, he’s not quick enough to react to a ball flying over his head and 15 metres past him.

The Panthers noticed that and kept it in their bag of tricks until it was needed.

In their biggest game of the season at the time and only three minutes in, the Panthers produced a play that defines so much of their season. Patient and calculated with the ball, Penrith ambushed teams all year and knew, eventually, they would crack.

The early-season thrashings allowed them to throw the ball around and try a few things. We caught a glimpse of what they’re working on during the week in preparation for the right moment. It all fell into place in the Preliminary Final and they never looked back.

James Fisher-Harris

James Fisher-Harris ran for 193 metres against the Broncos in Round 19. It was the ninth time he’d cracked 190 running metres throughout the 2021 NRL season. Remarkably, he’d only top 100 metres twice more through to the Grand Final.

The hulking Kiwi left the NRL bubble to attend the birth of his child but struggled upon his return. Attending the birth, spending two weeks in quarantine, and returning to play the best teams in the competition clearly had an impact on Fisher-Harris. However, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he played out an incredible season and will be regarded as one of the best props in the game when it all kicks off again next year.

It’s not only the yardage with the ball and brutal tackles without it that make Fisher-Harris great. It’s his activity around the ball. He’s always pushing up in support through the middle. Isaah Yeo performed exceptionally well and Fisher-Harris played a big part in that with how he played up at the line with Yeo.

Yeo is a very good ballplayer and having the defence consider a ball being tipped onto a rampaging Fisher-Harris opened up opportunities for Yeo to use his footwork or play out the back to his half.

The really good props – think: Christian Welch and Jesse Bromwich – are especially active. They work from the inside in defence and keep up with the ball in attack. It’s a position that thrives on one-percenters and it’s a position where a lot of their best work doesn’t show up on the stats pages. We can all look at running metres and decide whether or not a prop has played well. Heck, Dally M judges have awarded points for nothing more than topping the yardage column. However, the elite players at the position do more than just cart the ball up.

Fisher-Harris has the attractive numbers to prove he’s an elite prop, but the pudding is what he does without the ball.

Nathan Cleary

20 Games
10 Tries
21 Try Assists
14 Line Break Assists
26 Forced Drop Outs
111 Running Metres per Game

Tom Trbojevic’s highlight reel season is one of the best in NRL history but Nathan Cleary is at the top of my watch list every week.

Still only 24-years old, Cleary plays with veteran-like composure. He touches the ball more than any other player in the competition (excluding hookers) but never looks flustered. While others can overplay their hand and command too much of the ball to stifle the attack, that isn’t the case for Cleary across his 70.5 touches per game.

He passes players onto the ball and into favourable matchups. Where other halves might point to where on the field they want the ball to end up, Cleary gets his hands on the ball and passes his team into spots he wants them.

His deception with the ball is second to none. Defenders are fixed on their heels whenever he has the ball knowing it could go to anybody at any moment. The change in tempo on his runs create havoc in the defensive line and open up gaps for himself and others.

“Cleary is mesmerizing defensive lines at the moment. He has the skills in his bag and the bandwidth to understand and anticipate the movements of the defending players in front of him. It’s another example of what “eyes-up footy” truly is.” – Capturing Nathan Cleary’s Greatness

Cleary is the best halfback in rugby league right now. He’s a triple-threat with the ball and his footy IQ is off the charts. He’s only going to get better in 2022, too. One of my favourite players in the competition, I’m excited to see what he adds to his bag of tricks over the summer.

~ Jason

3-2-1

True rugby league fans will know there’s nothing more legitimate than the Dally M’s 3-2-1 voting system…With that in mind, Oscar picks out three elements from the 2021 season that deserve a mention.

3 – Dylan Edwards

I’m a big Dylan Edwards guy. He’s the type of player who doesn’t get the recognition he deserves while superstar names around him command the spotlight and his playing style doesn’t lend itself to highlight reel moments in attack. For that reason Edwards is lumped into the Clint Gutherson-mould of fullbacks but in reality his ceiling is much higher. 

Like Gutherson, Edwards is an elite running fullback. He topped the stats sheet for kick return metres and was third for total run metres behind Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Tom Trbojevic this season. His motor and positional play mean Edwards is always in position to field kicks and take the easy metres on offer. Unlike Gutherson however, Edwards also has the vision and natural passing game to be a little more creative in these situations. 

It’s a risky play but given how Melbourne compress their defensive line early in sets there might’ve been more planning to this than we first thought. Stephen Crichton is in an acre of space on the left edge as Edwards drifts across field and it results in a 30 metre gain for the Panthers in what was an arm wrestle affair against Melbourne in Round 3. Penrith’s dominance over the past two seasons hasn’t forced them to work out their own end often but when they do, Edwards is one of the best in the business. 

In attack, Edwards’ support play – like Gutherson’s – is consistently elite. The pair round out the quinella for most runs in support this year and were always in the frame to collect an offload or be an option in attack. 

This was one of my favourite tries from 2021. Edwards does his job to support Crichton’s half-break before passing Cleary further upfield. You can see Edwards looking around and counting numbers as Cleary plays the ball and he sums up the situation smartly to drag Kevin Proctor out of the line and put Cleary over behind the ruck. 

Edwards’ ballplaying is what sets him apart from other high-effort, high-involvement type fullbacks. He’s light on his feet and knows how to use his speed and footwork to create space for players around him. 

This move he put on Cameron Munster from that same game in Round 3 was mean.

Munster looks like he has him covered until Edwards stutters and straightens ever so slightly in his run. That movement causes Munster to plant his feet and the instant he does Edwards bounces back to the outside. Overlap created. Two clean passes gets Charlie Staines into space and he burns the cover defence back on the inside for a brilliant team try. 

Edwards’ involvements in Penrith’s premiership push this year were as understated as they were underrated. He’s unlikely to be a top-three fullback in 2022 but he’s every chance of being the best of the rest and it won’t be long before rival clubs start circling. 

2 – Viliame Kikau

I never fully jumped on board the Viliame Kikau hype train. He’s a freakish attacking talent but I tend to gravitate more towards the 99 little efforts a player makes in a match rather than any one highlight-reel moment. In saying that, Kikau has developed considerably over the past two years into a more complete footballer and 2021 was his best season yet. 

He’s an effective yardage man in exit sets and a reliable defensive bodyguard for Jarome Luai on Penrith’s left edge. Kikau’s 2774 total running metres was the fourth most of full-time backrowers and his 86 one-on-one tackles is the third most of all players in the competition (per Fox Sports Lab). He’ll never be one to grind out 40+ tackles each week but as Kikau matures he’s finding ways to use his skill set to impact the game on both sides of the ball. 

This defensive effort against Melbourne way back in Round 3 will be talked about for years to come. 

Take a bow, Viliame Kikau!

👏 👏 👏 #NRLPanthersStorm

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— Rugby League Writers (@rlwriters) March 25, 2021

Actions like these made me pay closer attention to Kikau as the season progressed. There were more subtleties to Kikau’s game than I had initially given him credit for and the variation he presented on Penrith’s left edge was key to their premiership campaign. 

Kikau consistently parked himself wide in exit sets to create positive involvements for himself in attack.

Not only does it pitch Kikau one-on-one with a smaller defender but it gives Penrith a chance to see how the opposition will defend actions like this. In this instance against Melbourne in the preliminary final, George Jennings jams in from his wing to contain Kikau which was the precursor for Brian To’o scoring later in the match. 

Just minutes after halftime, Luai and Kikau throw together this exact same shape. Luai plays into the line, Matt Burton runs the decoy and Kikau jockeys out the back. Just like last time, Jennings jams which leaves To’o unmarked when Kikau gets the pass away. In a game where the score ended up being 10-6, scoring actions like this didn’t come easy and Kikau’s ability to involve himself in different ways was the difference. 

Even when he didn’t touch the ball at all Kikau was a key cog in Penrith’s mechanical left-edge shifts in 2021.

We’ve got to give Burton a wrap here for his ballplaying but it’s Kikau’s threat as a ball runner that forces Jennings to jam, again here leaving To’o to score in the corner. It’s the same shape as in the first two actions above but this time Kikau is the decoy and at 195cm and 116kg the defence has no choice but to consider him in the line. 

When he burst onto the scene in 2018 it was ‘get the ball to Kikau’ or nothing else for Luai and the Panthers. In 2021 we saw Penrith use Kikau in a variety of different ways in order to get the most out of his vast skill set. He’s a wonderful line runner, a destructive carrier of the ball and has lovely soft hands for a big unit. It was a career year for Kikau in ‘21 and his playing contract will be a major talking point of next season. 

1 – Isaah Yeo

I can’t bang on about Cameron Murray in my South Sydney review without also giving Isaah Yeo a wrap in this one. Yeo is one of the most consistent performers in the competition this year and was integral in Penrith’s premiership campaign.

He can do just about everything Murray can (even if he doesn’t look as good doing it) but he does it over 80 minutes, week in, week out. At 27 years of age Yeo has a few winters on Murray and he is one of the more durable players in the comp. Yeo has missed just 11 games in six seasons for the Panthers and in the last two years in particular he has developed into one of the more complete forwards in the game. 

He regularly posts 30+ possessions per game and uses his involvements to march Penrith upfield in yardage sets or link with his playmakers in good ball. The Panthers play with slick attacking structures and Yeo at first-receiver with forward runners around him was a repeatable and effective action with the ball in hand this season. 

He’s quick enough to skip wide of the ruck and play over the ad-line and he’s big enough to do some damage himself if the defence holds off. In this instance Junior Paulo worries about Spencer Leniu pushing up in support which affords Yeo a one-on-one scenario with Oregon Kaufusi. Yeo wins the first contact and drives his way to an extra few metres before playing the ball quickly to give Jarome Luai plenty of time on fifth tackle. 

At 195cm and 103kgs Yeo has the size and strength to be effective in actions like these which is what makes his passing game even more dangerous. Particularly when defending their own try line, defenders must consider Yeo when he carries the ball into the line. That inevitably leaves space out wide and Yeo is good enough to get the ball there. 

Yeo and Nathan Cleary terrorised poor Coen Hess defending in the backrow in this one. The big fella repeatedly turned in on Yeo as he took the ball into the line and Yeo repeatedly punished him for it. Yeo plays with great tempo when he carries the ball in these actions. If the defence rushes at him Yeo plays nice and slow but if the defence is passive he goes at you. He takes a few genuine movements towards the line here before passing which forces North Queensland to compress around him, creating the space for Kurt Capewell two passes wider. 

Jase and I loved what Yeo did this season. He took on extra ballplaying duties when Cleary was on the sidelines and he was consistently one of Penrith’s best yardage men in the pack. The amount of work he gets through in 80 minutes is unrivalled and he thoroughly deserved his premiership ring in 2021.

~ Oscar

Summer Notepad

The NRL Notepad is a feature that has run all season. With the 2021 campaign wrapped up, we’re starting to think about what we’d like to see between now and March next year.

Backline Shaping Up

The Panthers are a settled and cohesive unit but the backline is one area where positions are up for grabs.

Matt Burton and Paul Momirovski have both left the club. Burton, in particular, became one of the best centres in the NRL this season and his departure has been somewhat understated so far. The Panthers left edge dominated in attack and a lot of that came down to how well Burton settled into the position.