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We’ve come a long way…

Goonji

Juniors
Messages
457
Today I’m sitting here thinking how far we have come as a club from my years supporting the Panthers.

I’m officially an old codger. I remember when I got a job in Sydney Water Head Office at Town Hall in 1978.

In my first week, me and half a dozen other blokes were standing around having a chat in our coffee break. One of the blokes asked: so you’re from Penrith, do you follow rugby league? I said yeah, I follow the Panthers. The bloke said, and all the others agreed, you’re the first Panthers supporter I’ve ever known or met.
 
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Caged Panther

First Grade
Messages
5,178
I wasn't even born in 1978 but funnily enough was saying to a mate this morning how I remember the days when it was hard to find a Penrith supporter in Penrith.

How times have changed! Walking around my local shopping center today it was harder trying to find the person not wearing some piece of Panthers merchandise.
 
Messages
3,217
I remember a time when the Panthers had to pay overs to attract players, and the players, mostly only came for their retirement payment.

Now we are recruiting players, who are young, and those who are journey men, and turning them into first graders, and they don't cost a fortune.
 

BxTom

Bench
Messages
2,674
I'm sure that all of you Panthers fans have ALWAYS believed that we had the greatest team ever. Now the results support our argument!
 

John Hamblin

Juniors
Messages
971
Wooden spoons, poo brown jerseys (what numpty chose the least marketable colours possible), a suburb miles from anything, with four pubs and an RSL. It was tough being a Panther fan back then!
Penrith's original colours were supposed to be brown and yellow. At that time the NSWRL made the decision on each clubs colours. Penrith had to get special dispensation to change that to brown and white.
 
Messages
728
Penrith's original colours were supposed to be brown and yellow. At that time the NSWRL made the decision on each clubs colours. Penrith had to get special dispensation to change that to brown and white.
I did not know this but as a Hawthorn fan in the AFL I don’t hate it!
 
Messages
728
Today I’m sitting here thinking how far we have come as a club from my years supporting the Panthers.

I’m officially an old codger. I remember when I got a job in Sydney Water Head Office at Town Hall in 1978.

In my first week, me and half a dozen other blokes were standing around having a chat in our coffee break. One of the blokes asked: so you’re from Penrith, do you follow rugby league? I said yeah, I follow the Panthers. The bloke said, and all the others agreed, you’re the first Panthers supporter I’ve ever known or met.
I’d imagine it’s be like finding a Titans fan in 2023.

I first started watching league in 1989 so missed the early years and got to see us contest the 90 and 91 GFs. Then Ben Alexander died and the team imploded. The Superleague split then cost us any chance of being good for the rest of the 90s and besides the 2003 triumph it had been a punishing watch up until 2020. The Matt Elliott years in particular were horrendous.
 

Crashtest

Juniors
Messages
1,187
Penrith have won over the kids. This is where the future lies, and they have it nailed.

And not just in the Penrith region either, but in the country regions as well which should help them continue to funnel the best juniors from there into out pathway programs for years to come
 

The Realist

Juniors
Messages
1,880
I am going a little against the grain here.

I KNEW the Panthers were capable of this. I even think we were over a decade too late.

2003 Should have been the start of a dynasty. Unfortunately, John Lang couldn't mold that squad into a culture of excellence and humility. I think the Panthers leadership realised this in 2006 but then selected a fraud of a coach in Matty Elliot.

Still, some of John Langs recruits from his northern trip brought down some good players - Matty Bell and Michael Gordon amongst them.

Elliot had quite a lot to play with in terms of a squad and there was this batch of juniors on the horizon that came from winning junior teams.

Chief amongst them was Michael Jennings, Sam McKendry and Tim Grant. Even Jarrod Sammut. Only a few years behind was the next crop of talent Wade Graham, Lachlan Coote, Masada Iosefa (RIP), Young Waddell looked like a world beater. It seemed we had a production line of talent about to roll through the squad in waves.

Unfortunately, though the Club itself was in dire financial straits. Panthers felt like it was constantly getting rebuilt spending big $$$ and getting nothing for it. This meant that there weren't the resources to dedicate to modernise the Footy operations. Elliot proved a disastrous coach, and his love for Canberra and Newcastle plodders was unparalleled. The worst thing about Elliot though is that he poisoned the Panthers well by allowing a very loose 'player power culture'. The proof of that was that at an after-game conference - Petero pretty much encouraged members to rebel against the new leadership!

Ivan came in and had to clear a huge mess in the roster. It was painful to see us lose so many home grown sons just before and during this period. Lewis, Jennings, Pritchard, Gordon, Waterhouse. Graham and Coote and others.

I fully admit I thought he was throwing away huge chunks of a good roster and Gus was signing players who were past their best and were looking for a last pay day before retirement. Little did we know that Cleary was building a Culture on Character - not Talent first.

Then we got; 'Ivan was tired' - and he sort of was. Griffin had a squad of decent character to work with and they did reasonably well but again - he was not the right coach for us and I think he neglected culture a little.

Ivan came back in - and he 'cut the cancers right out'. It felt a little like 2011-12 again. He was getting rid of RCG; a premier rising prop - our gun outside back DWZ and a few others. Were we going to get a repeat of 2015 again?

It turns out that the cancer that he had to cut out was not nearly as bad as his 1st stint and many of the players of good character (Yeo) were there to form the nucleus of what we have today. All it would take is for a young crop of players to come in from the Pathways and culture BOTH Gus and Ivan built for us to take off.

And Here we are. We finally made it. Better late than never and I honestly wouldn't change a thing despite the pain of what felt like 15 wasted years.
 

Pomoz

Bench
Messages
2,988
I am going a little against the grain here.

I KNEW the Panthers were capable of this. I even think we were over a decade too late.

2003 Should have been the start of a dynasty. Unfortunately, John Lang couldn't mold that squad into a culture of excellence and humility. I think the Panthers leadership realised this in 2006 but then selected a fraud of a coach in Matty Elliot.

Still, some of John Langs recruits from his northern trip brought down some good players - Matty Bell and Michael Gordon amongst them.

Elliot had quite a lot to play with in terms of a squad and there was this batch of juniors on the horizon that came from winning junior teams.

Chief amongst them was Michael Jennings, Sam McKendry and Tim Grant. Even Jarrod Sammut. Only a few years behind was the next crop of talent Wade Graham, Lachlan Coote, Masada Iosefa (RIP), Young Waddell looked like a world beater. It seemed we had a production line of talent about to roll through the squad in waves.

Unfortunately, though the Club itself was in dire financial straits. Panthers felt like it was constantly getting rebuilt spending big $$$ and getting nothing for it. This meant that there weren't the resources to dedicate to modernise the Footy operations. Elliot proved a disastrous coach, and his love for Canberra and Newcastle plodders was unparalleled. The worst thing about Elliot though is that he poisoned the Panthers well by allowing a very loose 'player power culture'. The proof of that was that at an after-game conference - Petero pretty much encouraged members to rebel against the new leadership!

Ivan came in and had to clear a huge mess in the roster. It was painful to see us lose so many home grown sons just before and during this period. Lewis, Jennings, Pritchard, Gordon, Waterhouse. Graham and Coote and others.

I fully admit I thought he was throwing away huge chunks of a good roster and Gus was signing players who were past their best and were looking for a last pay day before retirement. Little did we know that Cleary was building a Culture on Character - not Talent first.

Then we got; 'Ivan was tired' - and he sort of was. Griffin had a squad of decent character to work with and they did reasonably well but again - he was not the right coach for us and I think he neglected culture a little.

Ivan came back in - and he 'cut the cancers right out'. It felt a little like 2011-12 again. He was getting rid of RCG; a premier rising prop - our gun outside back DWZ and a few others. Were we going to get a repeat of 2015 again?

It turns out that the cancer that he had to cut out was not nearly as bad as his 1st stint and many of the players of good character (Yeo) were there to form the nucleus of what we have today. All it would take is for a young crop of players to come in from the Pathways and culture BOTH Gus and Ivan built for us to take off.

And Here we are. We finally made it. Better late than never and I honestly wouldn't change a thing despite the pain of what felt like 15 wasted years.
Great post, very thoughtful. The biggest frustration for any Panthers fan was knowing that there was a huge pool of talent in the district, but we let our best players leave and hardly produced any decent players for ten years. We didn't get the best out of Fittler, Jennings, Graham, Hasler, Carrol, Sing, to name a few.

But there was a man who cared more about the Panthers than his own ego. That man was Don Feltis. He was the catalyst to hire Gus and start the ball rolling to build the club from the ground up. It wasn't a rebuild because we hadn't really built a successful club in the first place. Two premierships, given the playing resources available in the local area was a pitiful return.

Don got Gus on board and then humbly had to stand by as Gus dismantled what had been put together, including him publicly pointing out the mismanagement of the salary cap and player roster, all under Don's chairmanship. It takes a great leader to do what is best for the club and not care if that is going to dent your ego. Thanks Don, you are a legend
 

The Realist

Juniors
Messages
1,880
Great post, very thoughtful. The biggest frustration for any Panthers fan was knowing that there was a huge pool of talent in the district, but we let our best players leave and hardly produced any decent players for ten years. We didn't get the best out of Fittler, Jennings, Graham, Hasler, Carrol, Sing, to name a few.

But there was a man who cared more about the Panthers than his own ego. That man was Don Feltis. He was the catalyst to hire Gus and start the ball rolling to build the club from the ground up. It wasn't a rebuild because we hadn't really built a successful club in the first place. Two premierships, given the playing resources available in the local area was a pitiful return.

Don got Gus on board and then humbly had to stand by as Gus dismantled what had been put together, including him publicly pointing out the mismanagement of the salary cap and player roster, all under Don's chairmanship. It takes a great leader to do what is best for the club and not care if that is going to dent your ego. Thanks Don, you are a legend

Great that you pointed that out as well. Don knew that the Panthers were not where they should be and he knew that his decisions up to that point were not up to scratch and that he wasn't the one to realise our potential, so he put the club ahead of himself, pulled the trigger with Gus and the rest is history.
 

sportsnut

Juniors
Messages
193
Today I’m sitting here thinking how far we have come as a club from my years supporting the Panthers.

I’m officially an old codger. I remember when I got a job in Sydney Water Head Office at Town Hall in 1978.

In my first week, me and half a dozen other blokes were standing around having a chat in our coffee break. One of the blokes asked: so you’re from Penrith, do you follow rugby league? I said yeah, I follow the Panthers. The bloke said, and all the others agreed, you’re the first Panthers supporter I’ve ever known or met.

Enjoy it my man!!

Then we will go again next year.
 

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