Favourite Panther wins

[Kilkenny]

I enjoyed the two wins in season 2020 and hopefully there are many more to come in this Covid interrupted season.

 

[Westernised Panther]

NRL.com had the final round game of 1992 on last evening, us vs the wooden spooner Gold Coast Seagulls, played at Tweed Heads. It was Wally's last game, that's why it was on. I only watched the first half. All our points were scored in the first half, and we should have led by 20+ with the holes the Seagulls had, and with the personnel we had, but it was 8-6 at halftime, and the GC ended up doing it for Wally and getting the try they needed in the second half to win 12-8, 2 tries all. A sad finish to a very sad season for us. I'm sure they could have challenged the Broncos that year if their minds were on the job.

Sad season indeed: 1992. The “what could’ve been....” season.

We started off slow with back-to-back defeats against Canberra and Newcastle. We then won at home against Manly followed by a brilliant away win against the Broncos in round 4. That particular game was the Saturday ABC game and I remember the commentator and our ex-coach John Peard staring over and over again after that win that Penrith was the team to beat. Unfortunately the next win, against the Steelers at home, was marred by Brandy sustaining a knee injury that kept him out for quite a few games.

Then the tragedy of Ben Alexander’s death hit and that pretty much sealed our fate that year.

In saying that, I remember with the Gold Coast game that if we beat them, and if Newcastle got beaten by Canberra, then there was a slim chance of making the five. Unfortunately we lost and Newcastle lost.

Despite the horror season, there were some highlights apart from the first three wins.

• Ben Alexander kicking the winning field goal to beat Easts (which was, tragically, his last game)
• Brad Fittler giving up his place in the Australian test team to grieve his good friend’s death, but came back into the side and inspired a great win against Wests (I still remember this game. Anthony Xuereb was playing fullback for Wests. He must have been psychologically scarred after his last game for us against North’s in the major semi from ‘91 as he made error after error and Fittler and Carter capitalises on that)
• Brandy’s comeback game towards the end of the season. Can’t remember who we played but it was at home. Might have been Canberra? I think we won as well.

 

[TheFrog]

Anthony Xuereb was playing fullback for Wests. He must have been psychologically scarred after his last game for us against North’s in the major semi from ‘91

Xeureb played just 2 first grade games for the Magpies. He returned to the Panthers and was pretty much the first grade fullback in '93, playing 16 games, and 3 more in '94, but ended up in St Marys Metropolitan Cup team for several years after that. Phil Gould alone must've liked him, because as soon as Gould left the Panthers, Xeureb did too. Those two games at Wests were his only ones in first grade not under Gus as coach.

 

[Buzzard Breath]

• Brandy’s comeback game towards the end of the season. Can’t remember who we played but it was at home. Might have been Canberra? I think we won as well.

Played Manly at Brookie. Lost 8-21. He came off the bench.
Tulsen Tollett was halfback at the time.
I think I saw the highlights of the match on channel nine. The days when they used to do a crappy 1-hour highlights package after the news.
I vividly remember the commentator welcoming him back.

 

[Westernised Panther]

Played Manly at Brookie. Lost 8-21. He came off the bench.
Tulsen Tollett was halfback at the time.
I think I saw the highlights of the match on channel nine. The days when they used to do a crappy 1-hour highlights package after the news.
I vividly remember the commentator welcoming him back.

Ah fair enough. For some reason I kept thinking that it was a home game.
And yes I remember the dreadful 1 hr highlights show. It was a ratings winner though

 

[TheFrog]

Ah fair enough. For some reason I kept thinking that it was a home game.
And yes I remember the dreadful 1 hr highlights show. It was a ratings winner though

46 minutes with ads. You couldn't move the news and you couldn't move 60 minutes, although eventually they did.

 

[roofromoz]

Ah fair enough. For some reason I kept thinking that it was a home game.
And yes I remember the dreadful 1 hr highlights show. It was a ratings winner though

Much worse when they bumped Friday night football back to 9:30pm, with that Cybil Shepherd sitcom being played at 8:30 as the lead up. That would have around 1996/97.

 

[pantherz9103]

Speaking of seasons that promised plenty but didn't deliver much...the 1994 season is another example.

The Panthers had high hopes of bouncing back to the Top 5 that year from the tragic 1992 and a poor 1993, when we signed the experienced Gary Freeman and Trevor Gillmeister.

We had some memorable wins that year. One of my favourite ever Panther wins is when we beat the eventual premiers Canberra 30-16 at Penrith Stadium in Round 12. I was in the crowd that day and I can remember Brad Fittler, Greg Alexander, Gary Freeman and Phil Adamson all having outstanding games. I think we were 5th at the time and I thought we would push on to make the finals but sadly our form fell apart after that win.

Unfortunately, Gus Gould walked out on us after Round 15 to join the Roosters and it was left to
our favourite son Royce Simmons to take over as coach for the rest of the season (and as it turned out the next 7 seasons).

Despite being out of finals contention, we upset the reigning premiers Brisbane 22-6 at home in Round 20 with Graham Mackay scoring 2 memorable tries, showing what might have been.

In the end we finished 8th out of 16 teams which I think was an underachievement for the talent we had.

 

[Kilkenny]

Speaking of seasons that promised plenty but didn't deliver much...the 1994 season is another example.

The Panthers had high hopes of bouncing back to the Top 5 that year from the tragic 1992 and a poor 1993, when we signed the experienced Gary Freeman and Trevor Gillmeister.

We had some memorable wins that year. One of my favourite ever Panther wins is when we beat the eventual premiers Canberra 30-16 at Penrith Stadium in Round 12. I was in the crowd that day and I can remember Brad Fittler, Greg Alexander, Gary Freeman and Phil Adamson all having outstanding games. I think we were 5th at the time and I thought we would push on to make the finals but sadly our form fell apart after that win.

Unfortunately, Gus Gould walked out on us after Round 15 to join the Roosters and it was left to
our favourite son Royce Simmons to take over as coach for the rest of the season (and as it turned out the next 7 seasons).

Despite being out of finals contention, we upset the reigning premiers Brisbane 22-6 at home in Round 20 with Graham Mackay scoring 2 memorable tries, showing what might have been.

In the end we finished 8th out of 16 teams which I think was an underachievement for the talent we had.

Good post. I’m glad you mentioned Gary Freeman. I remember him fondly. I know he came to us at the back end of his career but gee he was a warrior, I loved his competitive spirit even if it was for a very short period. Gilly on the other hand was well and truly done by the time he came to us.

 

[pantherz9103]

Good post. I’m glad you mentioned Gary Freeman. I remember him fondly. I know he came to us at the back end of his career but gee he was a warrior, I loved his competitive spirit even if it was for a very short period. Gilly on the other hand was well and truly done by the time he came to us.

I hadn't been able to find much footage of our 1994 games on youtube, but I recently found a season review and it brought back some fond memories including our win over Canberra at 51:25

 

[Jane Murray]

The win against the Eels last year, when their ground was christened with a loss. Round 1 victory against the Roosters is another.

 

[Panther Mick]

Good post. I’m glad you mentioned Gary Freeman. I remember him fondly. I know he came to us at the back end of his career but gee he was a warrior, I loved his competitive spirit even if it was for a very short period. Gilly on the other hand was well and truly done by the time he came to us.

I remember the game he scored 4 tries against Wests.

 

[Whino]

Good post. I’m glad you mentioned Gary Freeman. I remember him fondly. I know he came to us at the back end of his career but gee he was a warrior, I loved his competitive spirit even if it was for a very short period. Gilly on the other hand was well and truly done by the time he came to us.

Whiz went ok with us. I think the 94 season he was our Player of the Year.
Scored a few tries over his 2 years here. Well over 20. A good haul for a halfback.
Gilly didn't do much. Maybe 1 or 2 good games. The rest were largely disappointing.

 

[Alintheeast]

Whiz went ok with us. I think the 94 season he was our Player of the Year.
Scored a few tries over his 2 years here. Well over 20. A good haul for a halfback.
Gilly didn't do much. Maybe 1 or 2 good games. The rest were largely disappointing.

Could never workout how we didn’t make the 94 finals, we had Wiz, Fittler,Alexander, Mackay, Robbie Becket, Matt Sing, Steve Carter, Girdler Forwards were OK. I think Fittler and Freeman were actually captains of their respective countries when they played for Penrith.

 

[Buzzard Breath]

Speaking of seasons that promised plenty but didn't deliver much...the 1994 season is another example.

The Panthers had high hopes of bouncing back to the Top 5 that year from the tragic 1992 and a poor 1993, when we signed the experienced Gary Freeman and Trevor Gillmeister.

We had some memorable wins that year. One of my favourite ever Panther wins is when we beat the eventual premiers Canberra 30-16 at Penrith Stadium in Round 12. I was in the crowd that day and I can remember Brad Fittler, Greg Alexander, Gary Freeman and Phil Adamson all having outstanding games. I think we were 5th at the time and I thought we would push on to make the finals but sadly our form fell apart after that win.

Unfortunately, Gus Gould walked out on us after Round 15 to join the Roosters and it was left to
our favourite son Royce Simmons to take over as coach for the rest of the season (and as it turned out the next 7 seasons).

Despite being out of finals contention, we upset the reigning premiers Brisbane 22-6 at home in Round 20 with Graham Mackay scoring 2 memorable tries, showing what might have been.

In the end we finished 8th out of 16 teams which I think was an underachievement for the talent we had.

That was a very frustrating and inconsistent season.
There were fine wins over Canberra and the finest win of the year against Brisbane but that was only teasing.
We finished 5 points out of the top 5 in 8th place. Under today's system we would have made the finals. Not that we deserved to play finals footy that year.

Losses against teams below us like Souths, Newcastle, Parramatta and Easts were costly. We should have beaten Easts and Parramatta but never turned up. Draws against Illawarra and the Gold Coast too.

We were our own worst enemy at times.
Gould spend a portion of the year fueding with Bill Harrigan before bailing out with a secret deal with Easts. A month or two in the making, if you believe the press back then.
I can remember our spine being shuffled about all season through injury and Gould looking for the right combinations.

Freeman had a great year and so did the Adamson brothers. Phil had great impact off the bench.
Mackay scored a heap of tries.

Fittler was great too. He won us a few games with single handed brilliance.
Van Der voort was unfortunately done with injuries but his comeback game against Canberra was memorable.
That year could have been so much better.

 

[Panfa]

2003 grand final 2014 semi final and coming back from 31-8 against the tigers

 

[pantherz9103]

That was a very frustrating and inconsistent season.
There were fine wins over Canberra and the finest win of the year against Brisbane but that was only teasing.
We finished 5 points out of the top 5 in 8th place. Under today's system we would have made the finals. Not that we deserved to play finals footy that year.

Losses against teams below us like Souths, Newcastle, Parramatta and Easts were costly. We should have beaten Easts and Parramatta but never turned up. Draws against Illawarra and the Gold Coast too.

We were our own worst enemy at times.
Gould spend a portion of the year fueding with Bill Harrigan before bailing out with a secret deal with Easts. A month or two in the making, if you believe the press back then.
I can remember our spine being shuffled about all season through injury and Gould looking for the right combinations.

Freeman had a great year and so did the Adamson brothers. Phil had great impact off the bench.
Mackay scored a heap of tries.

Fittler was great too. He won us a few games with single handed brilliance.
Van Der voort was unfortunately done with injuries but his comeback game against Canberra was memorable.
That year could have been so much better.

Yep I was a young kid/teen back in the that time and I was highly frustrated by how ordinary we were for much of the 90's after '91 because we had the names to do better and showed it in certain games against the top sides but always had plenty of losses to the average and poor teams. I remember we always seemed to have a stack of injuries when Royce was the coach and we thought if only we could have more luck with injuries we would have made the finals a few more times. I don't think it's a coincidence that in 2003 we had very few injuries and won the comp.

 

[Buzzard Breath]

Yep I was a young kid/teen back in the that time and I was highly frustrated by how ordinary we were for much of the 90's after '91 because we had the names to do better and showed it in certain games against the top sides but always had plenty of losses to the average and poor teams. I remember we always seemed to have a stack of injuries when Royce was the coach and we thought if only we could have more luck with injuries we would have made the finals a few more times. I don't think it's a coincidence that in 2003 we had very few injuries and won the comp.

The best usually go through without much disruption. We thankfully did that in 03.

1997 I do wonder with Super League. I am not suggesting we would have won it but if Brandy didn't suffer a serious foot injury. His form for the early part of that season was outstanding. He only played 6 games that year (not including the tri-series and World Club challenge matches later) In that form he had early on he would have been a massive inclusion for our finals matches.

Looking back I do recall more than a fair amount of injuries in the mid to late 90's and early 00's. I seem to recall one year maybe 2001. Someone from the club brought in a religious minister to bless the ground as a result of all our injuries that year. To turn the tide of bad luck away from us. It didn't do any good, but the story always stayed with me.

 

[Buzzard Breath]

Could never workout how we didn’t make the 94 finals, we had Wiz, Fittler,Alexander, Mackay, Robbie Becket, Matt Sing, Steve Carter, Girdler Forwards were OK. I think Fittler and Freeman were actually captains of their respective countries when they played for Penrith.

1995 they were both captains of their respective countries.

 

[Kilkenny]

1995 they were both captains of their respective countries.

Sometimes there are players who play for other clubs who you don’t realise just how good they are until they actually come and play for your own club. Gary Freeman was one of those players, it wasn’t till he had those couple of seasons with us that I fully appreciated what he brought to the team and the club generally. His will to win, determination, grit and personality made him a very special player and person. He may not have brought us success but I enjoyed having him at the club and watching him on the field if only for a short period.