Penrith players have warned they still have more fingers to fill with NRL premiership rings, declaring their legacy is not yet complete.
Penrith's 14-6 win over Melbourne on Sunday night etched them into NRL folklore, the first team to claim four straight titles in almost 60 years.
They also became the first men's side in any Australian professional sporting league to win four consecutive titles this century, bettering the previous mark of three.
Panthers players and coaching staff put their legacy at the forefront of everything they did in this year's finals campaign, making it their official theme.
While players wore UFC-style belts last year as the "Undisputed" champions, borrowed Top Gun themes in 2022 and climbed Everest in 2021, they opted for a simpler mantra this year.
A "legacy" theme became prominent in all they did, displayed on individual locker-room doors at Accor Stadium with each player's traits also listed.
Created by coach Ivan Cleary and assistant Peter Wallace and put to players a month before the finals, the idea centred around departing players Jarome Luai, James Fisher-Harris and Sunia Turuva, along with the side's overall legacy during their run.
"It wasn't as obvious this year," Cleary told AAP.
"Last year the whole three-peat and undisputed was quite obvious.
"This year we didn't want to come up with a theme just for the sake of it, otherwise we wouldn't have done it.
"It was more than another premiership, who you play for and our community and families. Just what was driving it, the guys leaving. That's where it came from."
Penrith players are adamant, however, their legacy is still not complete.
And while the term was at the very core of their premiership success this year, they are not ready to look back on what they have achieved until their careers are over.
Only South Sydney between 1925 and 1929, along with the great St George sides who won 11 straight in the 1950s and 1960s, have strung together five premierships.
"We're not finished yet. That's one thing we said about our legacy," Clive Churchill Medal winner Liam Martin said amid the celebrations.
"We're not finished, we want more and we'll keep going. It's really special what we've done so far.
"I want five (premierships). There are still plenty of fingers left for the ring.
"This feeling is addictive. This is why we play footy, why we do it and turn up day in and day out. We are definitely hungrier and can't wait to go again."
Next year will theoretically pose the biggest challenge to Penrith since this group first made the NRL grand final in 2020, with Luai and Fisher-Harris at the core of their success.
The pair will join the likes of Stephen Crichton, Matt Burton, Api Koroisau, Kurt Capewell and Viliame Kikau as stars to have left the club during their run.
But that in itself highlights the magnitude of the Panthers' feat, with only two sides having previously even gone back-to-back in the 34 years since the salary cap was introduced.
"It's a lot of hard work, over a decade of hard work. It doesn't happen overnight," Fisher-Harris said.
"But now I can say we are the greatest team ever."
