In a pulsating contest between the two best NRL sides of the past decade, Penrith Panthers have beaten Melbourne Storm 14-6 to clinch the NRL premiership and become the first team since St George (1956-1966) to claim four consecutive titles. The historic grand final victory, before a crowd of 80,156 in Sydney, was again led by the “prince of Penrith”, Nathan Cleary, though Liam Martin claimed the Clive Churchill Medal as best player afield.
After local rapper The Kid Laroi finished a meandering set with a cover of INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart, it was time for the leading teams of 2024 to tear each other apart. Both sides ran out to AC/DC; Penrith to Hells Bells, Melbourne to Thunderstruck. It was fitting – two high voltage teams of alternating current about to ride the lightning.
As befits a grand final of heavyweights, the match was played with furious intensity. Both teams attacked from the jump, punching and probing, exposing nerves as the intensity rose. Jarome Luai danced. Cam Munster jumped and jagged. Shawn Blore flattened Panther backs like pikelets. Martin folded Storm runners like laundry.
When the direct approach failed to dent either defensive line, both teams went to Plan B: sow confusion and create havoc. Offloads and dink kicks, grubbers and cut-outs, tap ons and runarounds. It almost worked for Penrith in the fifth minute when Moses Leota charged to within a metre of the line but Isaah Yeo spilt the inside pass.
The breathless frenzy produced passages of brilliance but after 20 minutes in the maelstrom, fatigue sank into the players like a fog. When Munster crunched Cleary and stripped, it set in motion Blore’s charge to the 10m line and fast play-the-ball. Harry Grant swept in for the snipe and after 22 minutes of razzle dazzle the little hooker shot into space and shimmied past a tired Martin to cross for 6-0.
Penrith hit back within minutes when Storm winger Will Warbrick spilt a Luai bomb on the last to gift the Panthers another full set. Cleary and Luai quickly found Paul Alamoti who swivelled a pass to winger Sunia Turuva who speared into the corner. Cleary put the conversion wide but at 6-4 the grand final was back on a razor’s edge.
Another poor kick by Papenhuyzen gifted Penrith a halfway restart in the shadows of halftime and after a desperate tackle stopped Turuva from scoring, Luai launched a long wobbling pass that caught the Storm lolly-gagging. Cleary reeled it in and spat the pip to Martin who hit the pass at speed to put the Panthers up 10-6 at the break.
Both sides had completed 17/20 sets, but Penrith had dominated 17 minutes to 13, and averaged almost 20m per set more than Melbourne. Vitally, Cleary had 148m running metres from a game high 20 hit-ups and his bung shoulder was holding.
But it was his opposite number Munster who first lit up the second half. The Jekyll-Hyde playmaker hoisted a bomb to the left corner and Xavier Coates snatched it from the sky and fed it to Jack Howarth who dived over with four pink Penrith jerseys hanging off him only to be controversially denied the try by the TMO.
For all their flow-state attacking football, Penrith’s three premierships had been built on defence. That defensive grit was tested as Munster and Hughes orchestrated raid after raid. But Cleary’s spiral torpedoes and oscillating bombs kicked them to safety.
The second half mirrored the first: 22 minutes of arm wrestle followed by a moment of individual brilliance. Of course it was Cleary the conjuror and his magic right boot. He scraped the heaven with a kick and Martin was there to swallow it – and Coates – then switch the play to Leota who spiralled a sublime ball to Alamoti on the edge and launched himself parallel into the corner.
At 14-6 with a quarter to play, the Storm were still within striking distance of a fifth premiership from the 10 grand finals in Craig Bellamy’s 22-year reign. But they couldn’t find the thunder. The Panthers held on and hammered their name into history to give Nathan Cleary and his coach father Ivan a new destiny to cherish.
