Penrith were beaten in the forwards, Fafita and Tagatese were fantastic.
About time too.
Unusually, our backs have been better than our forwards for weeks, but finally most the forwards are back and with a few games (Gallen being the notable exception) and we actually look OK again in the middle of the field.
We still struggled mightily to score with lots of sets against the Penrith line, but we did score 4 tries and it could easily have been 6, so I'm not too concerned about our future (not as much as I was a few months ago).
Penrith now finding the going tough with chopped and changed halves pairings (due to injury), most teams will (and have, this year) struggle without a solid halves pairing playing together for a while. Also having more disruptions to their squad at the wrong end of the season, and crucially just lacking a bit of luck against the Sharks, again (which is another unusual thing that normally doesn't happen for us).
No team looks particularly good or particularly bad at the moment (only Manly have won 4 of last 5 games at the moment, every other team no more than 3 wins from last 5, so no team dominating), so I wouldn't write the Panthers off yet.
Sure, they lost to the Sharks (twice), but one of the few teams to have to play close to a full strength Sharks (twice) and only just lost. With the close competition, its not so much which teams you win or lose against that counts, but stringing a few wins in a row that will show real form.
Penrith are close enough to the top, that a few wins in a row would make a big difference, and any team looks as likely as any other of winning once the finals start.
So it looks like the Penrith fans who were saying earlier in this thread that no matter the "draw", if Penrith get to the top 8 they still need to win to prove themselves are about right. No team seems to be so much better or worse than any other that the "draw" has been a huge factor, and it really all comes down to the finals form now.
