Panthers mauled by rampant storm

Iwas looking forward to a ripper of an NRL grand final as the Penrith Panthers took on the Melbourne Storm, but by half-time my dreams of seeing my good friend Ivan Cleary lift the Premiership were in tatters.

The Panthers coach had to have given his players a good talking to, down 22-0 despite not actually playing that badly, but only the most optimistic giving them much chance of turning that one around.

And so it proved despite a pretty good effort, the Storm getting home 26-20 in a match marred by controversial refereeing and bunker decisions.

It only took about five minutes for Panthers fans to start crying foul, Justin Olam diving over in the corner for the Storm. It was sent up as no try, but came back as a penalty try, the Penrith defender deemed to have kicked out at the ball to dislodge it.

Then when Josh Mansour went over, it was called back for obstruction, and the Panthers must have thought nothing would go their way.

But they were the victims of their own errors and it was pretty much over as a contest after those first 40 minutes.

The only hope the Panthers had was if they could get off to a fast start in the second half, but that’s exactly what the Storm did, Ryan Papenhuyzen scoring the try of the match early on to seal it for Melbourne. The Panthers hung in there, scoring the last four tries of the match, in truth, courtesy of a couple of dodgy calls that at last went their way.

The Storm’s detractors, of which there are plenty, will point to two sin-binnings reducing them to 11, as typical of their win at any cost style.

They will also wonder how captain Cameron Smith got away with suggesting to referee Gerard Sutton that he was trying to set up a close finish by sinbinning Jahrome Hughes with nine minutes to go.

A lot of people will tell you Smith gets special treatment, and a lot of them will be

Panthers fans, because their coach copped a $20,000 fine for suggesting something similar earlier in the season about Canberra getting an easy ride to get back into a match.

But that was in an aftermatch interview, not on the field, where things tend to get treated more leniently. It is all history now.

I did laugh though when Waiheke Island’s own Brandon Smith, one of the Storm players sin-binned, was interviewed after the game. He is a real character and never takes himself too seriously, telling Brad Fittler he didn’t play too well and might sell his championship ring to pay for the beers he was about to drink.

As I say, Brandon is a real character and I have a super soft spot for him because he never fails to acknowledge the sacrifices his mum and dad made to get him where he is today.

I was also absolutely stoked to see Vodafone Warriors women’s NRL captain Georgia Hale awarded the 2020 Veronica White Medal for her community role with the club. She is just plain awesome and works incredibly hard. No-one could dispute her picking up this award.

I will have to look forward to State of Origin for my league fix now, as we go into the off season after what has been the oddest year ever.

And like everyone else, I’ll be counting the days before the All Blacks can get out of isolation and put those uppity Wallabies back in their place.

Warriors women’s NRL captain Georgia Hale was awarded the 2020 Veronica White Medal for her community role with the club.