The Panthers fell short last year but went one better this time around to beat the Rabbitohs and win the 2021 NRL Grand Final.
Rugby League fans deserved that NRL Grand Final after the 2021 season we’ve endured.
Tough, tactical, tiresome even to watch, it’s one of the best games of the year.
Both teams had their chances to win it. While the South Sydney Rabbitohs were forced to bunker down and defend more than they would have liked, the odd glimpse of what could be with the ball in hand was enough to be hopeful to the end. But it was the Penrith Panthers who put in a performance that typifies their season. They won the possession battle, dominated in yardage, and defended their line to a standard that has them recognised as the second-best defence of the NRL era.
It’s an 80 minutes nobody will forget any time soon, but let’s take a look at some of the key moments of an epic contest and how they shaped Penrith’s 14-12 win over South Sydney.
- Burton’s Try
- Walker’s Response
- South Sydney’s Chance
- Crichton’s Grab
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Burton’s Try
It all went to script for the Panthers early. They won the contact on both sides of the ball, pinned the Rabbitohs in their own end, and applied their calculated and patient approach in attack until it produced points.
Matt Burton’s try in the 16th minute came as a reward for the three forced dropouts and overall domination in yardage Penrith had produced to start this one.
It’s Penrith’s patient approach that saw them lay the groundwork for this try five minutes earlier.
The Panthers fired that same shape at the Rabbitohs right edge in the 12th minute. Cleary feeds Luai with early ball and room to move. Notably, it’s 5th tackle and Luai shapes to kick before digging into the line and feeding Burton out the back. Cameron Murray’s inside pressure forces a pass out of Luai slightly earlier than he would have liked and Graham is able to make the right read and jam in on Burton.
While To’o dips under the Reynolds tackle and goes close to the line, he ultimately falls just short as the Rabbitohs scramble to close him down. Importantly, Reynolds was in a position to slide and at least force To’o back infield.
Five minutes later it’s the same shape, again on 5th tackle, with a couple of slight differences.
It starts a little bit wider this time. Unlike the first example, Luai is able to get on the outside of the four-in defender (Murray this time) and a subtle right-foot step towards Reynolds sends the Bunnies #7 onto his heels. With the extra time to make a bee-line for Reynolds, Luai is able to get deeper into the line and play tighter with Martin which forces Graham to make a defensive decision on the lead runner.
Reynolds slides just as he did in the first example, but Graham jams in this time as he considers the prospect of Martin being isolated onto his halfback inside. Luai makes the right pass and Burton is over untouched.
It’s only minor, but Cleary’s run at the line earlier in the set also had an impact.
Off his left foot and to the inside shoulder of the four-in defender, Cleary throws some doubt into the defensive line. He is too strong of a ball-carrier to start sliding before the ball is released.
Three tackles later and from the same position on the field, Cleary’s earlier run holds up Murray just enough to delay his slide. Murray comes off his line straight weary of Cleary’s threat as a runner and doesn’t make his move towards Luai until the ball is gone.
Luai has started to drift towards Reynolds by this stage and that extra step or two he is allowed to take towards the halfback allows the Panthers to run the shape a lot tighter which makes all the difference.
The build-up and patience shown in this try sums up the 2021 Panthers to perfection.
Walker’s Response
If Burton’s try sums up the Panthers this season then Cody Walker’s response five minutes later also captures his 2021.
He has been one of the best-attacking players in the NRL this year, and with his team against the ropes and in desperate need of something before the game got away from them, Walker produced.
Souths had been hitting Keaon Koloamatangi short and testing Cleary’s shoulder whenever they could throughout the first 20 minutes. Having trained the defence to square up and turn on Koloamatangi, Reynolds found Walker out the back. He bounces to the outside of Kurt Capewell who can’t scramble across to close him down. With the ball out in front and in position to pass, Cleary is reluctant to commit to Walker.
Cleary is moving backwards and up too high by the time he does make his move on Walker and is cast aside like a paper plate.
Dylan Edwards is similarly considerate of Walker’s pass and is tracking across the field in anticipation of the ball going wide. Wrong-footed, Edwards barely makes an impact on Walker as he steps inside the fullback on his way to the line.
Walker has been fantastic this season and produced the highlight reel moment most expected in a Grand Final. However, rather unfairly, Walker’s season is more likely to be remembered for the wrong reasons in the end.
South Sydney’s Chance
The Panthers dominated the yardage game all night. They finished up the first half with 434 more running metres than South Sydney and took that dominance into the second half. While an arm-wrestle through the centre third played into Penrith’s hands, Souths were up to the challenge. However, with the game in the balance and with a chance to finally apply some pressure through field position, the Rabbitohs failed to take their chance.
Having defended the set well and forcing Cleary to pass the ball on 5th tackle, the Bunnies triggered a poor kick out of Tyrone May in the 63rd minute. Taaffe’s kick return put the Rabbitohs 40-metres up the field having started the majority of their sets from well inside their own 30-metre line. More often inside their 20-metre line.
They charged the middle and explored down the left side on 4th tackle. Reynolds’ pass went to the ground in a failed shift, but Dane Gagai collected the loose ball and found his way to the middle of the field. Now 40 metres out and with the Panthers defensive line out on their feet having scrambled the entire set, Reynolds had all of the time and space he needed to land a kick inside the Panthers ten-metre line. Perhaps not aware of the tackle count, Walker tried to grubber in behind the line and the Panthers are let off the hook.
While Penrith does start this set on the 20-metre line, their forwards haven’t needed to travel back in a hurry. Souths don’t have the advantage of line speed and the field position they would have had Reynolds been able to force them inside the ten-metre line.
This should have been where the Rabbitohs turned the screws and looked to force an error. They had the attack to make the most of the opportunity had they earned one. Souths managed only five tackles inside the Penrith 20-metre line all night. The first didn’t come until the 41st minute with that set ending with a ball over the left sideline to end a dangerous-looking left shift. Two of them came in the build-up to Alex Johnston’s 74th-minute try which the Rabbitohs scored with relative ease.
All night it felt like Souths would score if they could get close enough to the Panthers line. This was a prime opportunity to create that chance but they failed to take it and were soon made to pay.
Crichton’s Grab
It came in South’s Sydney’s next set with the ball.
Perhaps Walker was looking to make up for how the last set ended and went searching for the big play?
Who could blame him, really. That big play had come off more often than not throughout the 2021 NRL season. But the match required patience and for Souths to stick to the game plan.
Gagai’s 17 runs led all Rabbitohs players on the night. Many of which came in this scenario with Walker getting onto the outside of his man and putting Gagai into space. They had used Koloamatangi, Thomas Burgess and Mark Nicholls short onto Cleary all night. They forced a career-high nine missed tackles out of the halfback while compressing the defence which allowed Walker to sweep and feed Gagai.
Passing to Gagai was the high-percentage play here. Instead, Walker went long and Stephen Crichton scored what ended up as the match-winner.
Crichton had been defending with that high line most of the night. It’s in stark contrast to how the Storm defended the Sea Eagles on similar shifts in Week 1 of the finals. Where the Storm would drop back and give Tom Trbojevic and the Sea Eagles left edge space, Crichton sat high in preparation for this pass.
Walker has sent Johnston streaking down the sideline on numerous occasions throwing this ball throughout the year and Ivan Cleary made note of the work his assistants had put into preparing for this one in his post-match press conference:
“Our edge guys have practiced that situation, I don’t know how many times. Every single week
Credit to Cameron Ciraldo who runs our defence, Andrew Webster who runs our attack. We train for it, and when it comes off in the big moments, he [Crichton] has that ability to be able to do that, but he’s trained for that too.“
Walker went searching for a big moment in the match for the Rabbitohs but Crichton and the Panthers came prepared to turn it into a big moment of their own. The biggest, in fact.
While the Rabbitohs fell just two point short, few will argue against the Panthers being the better team on the night. They’ve been one of the most consistent over the last two years and all of that work translated into a textbook performance in the game that counts.