Former Penrith boss Phil Gould believes the Panthers have had the perfect preparation to spring a preliminary final ambush and upset highly-fancied Melbourne on Saturday afternoon at Suncorp Stadium.
The Panthers are paying as much as $3.30 with bookmakers, signifying how well the Storm are travelling and the fact many people expect them to win easily and cruise through to the grand final against either Manly or South Sydney.
On top of their respective form lines, Penrith are battling a number of injury concerns with Brian To’o and Viliame Kikau racing the fitness clock to line up in the penultimate premiership decider.
The Panthers finished the regular season second on the NRL ladder, but have since lost 16-10 to the Rabbitohs and then fought out a tough and controversial 8-6 victory over Parramatta.
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The Storm, in comparison, thumped Manly 40-12 in the qualifying final and will have had two weeks’ rest by the time they take the field on Saturday.
While all signs point to a Melbourne win, Gould believes the form actually works in Penrith’s favour.
“To beat Melbourne it’s going to have to be a tough, close game. They’re not going to blow Melbourne away, if Panthers win they’re going to have to win 16-12 or 14-12 or something like that, that’s the sort of game it’s going to be,” Gould told James Bracey on Wide World of Sports’ Six Tackles With Gus podcast.
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“Well they’ve just been through two of them, not having had any of those through the course of the season.
“You’ve got to remember Melbourne, when they got their first taste of a tough game in a long time, they got beaten 22-10 by Parramatta. Parramatta took a game to them and Melbourne didn’t handle it too good.
“That’s been the drawback for these two top teams cruising through the season, hopping on one leg, beating teams by 30 and 40 and leaving blokes out and resting blokes and still winning football games.
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“But when you get into the finals, and get into one of those Origin-style knock-down, drag them out, games going down to the wire and one play might make or break your season, that’s a different sort of tension, that’s a different type of football.
“And to be honest, Melbourne didn’t like it when Parramatta put it to them a month ago. Then they got a really easy semi-final win, won by 40 then got a fortnight off, whereas Penrith have come through these two battle-hardened games.
“If you’re the Panthers this is what you’ve got to believe, this is what you’ve got to take into the game. You’ve got to believe these last two games have primed us perfectly to be the team we need to be to beat this Storm side.
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“We’re not going there to beat them 40-20, we’re going there to beat them 16-12 or 16-14… that’s the way it’s going to be.”‘
Melbourne only dropped three games during the regular season, and one of them was a thrilling 12-10 loss to Penrith in Round 3.
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That was revenge of sorts for last year’s grand final, when Melbourne proved too classy and too experienced for the young Panthers when it mattered the most.
“From the time the full-time siren went in last year’s grand final, I believe these Panthers will have been living for just one day, they’ve been waiting 12 months for this day,” Gould said.
“It’s not in a grand final, that’s probably where they expected (it) to be.
“(They will be thinking) let’s take them to a place they haven’t been for a while, let’s see if they can get into a knock-down drag-them-out (contest). We’ve been waiting for this day for 12 months. It’s here, we’ve got them.”
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