The Penrith system is absolutely what we should be trying to achieve. Their success comes from within, and because they’re so successful they can practically sign whoever they want (If they need to) because players know that if they go there they have a legit shot at winning the comp every year.
Those guys may come across as dickheads but quite often that’s what winning teams look like, and you usually need some arrogance to win consistently like they do, and you sort of earn the right to be arrogant in a way.
Honestly, the Knights come across as a bunch of nice guys way too often. It’s like we’re just there to make teams like Penrith look good, which I’m sure is what will happen tomorrow. Even if we play well we’re still likely to be beaten comfortably and the coach will say how “brave” and “tough” we were in defeat. But none of that means anything really because we’ve heard that so many times. This club needs to develop a winning mentality from the ground up. Once they get onto the field, Penrith will do anything to win, and they will make you play top football until the 80th minute (or beyond) to beat them.
Jeez I envy Panthers fans, like how good must it be to turn up every week literally knowing you’re team will win, and if they don’t then it’s still going to be one hell of a fight. On the other hand we turn up and literally know that on any given day we could lose to any other team in the comp, and even a hopelessly out of form Broncos team that’s lost 6 on the trot is every chance of beating us at home.
Honestly I have no idea whether we are ever going to get that winning feeling again as a fan base. The way we played in the back end of last year was the closest thing we’ve had to that in a long time and it was wonderful but unfortunately fleeting.