Poor Panthers. Seriously, how does one team suffer so many injuries? You thought that 2014 was the worst it could get, but we were proven wrong in 2015 after an absolute horror year.

To be fair to Penrith, when their squad was relatively uninjured, they played pretty damn well. Problem was, those performances were scattered.

Penrith were playing to their best of their abilities, but were so badly struck with injuries that they couldn’t compete with a lot of sides. I remember reading their first-choice spine played a total of eight minutes together (or something ridiculous like that) last year.

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The injuries they suffered hurt them so badly that they struggled to avoid the wooden spoon. In fact, they played in the 2015 ‘spoonbowl’ against the Newcastle Knights in Round 26 last year, where the loser of that match ended up with the infamous cooking utensil. Fortunately they managed to beat the hapless Newcastle, because they certainly did not deserve the spoon.

Penrith come into 2016 with notable gains Trent Merrin, Peta Hiku, Suaia Matagi and Te Maire Martin, having lost Lewis Brown, Brent Kite, Apisai Koroisau, Nigel Plum and Jamal Idris – so a big improvement overall. They also had a coaching change, with Ivan Cleary being replaced by Anthony Griffin.

So will Penrith pull off a repeat of 2014, or struggle and miss the eight again?

1. Matt Moylan

2. Dallin Watene-Zelezniak

3. Dean Whare

4. Peta Hiku

5. Josh Mansour

6. Jamie Soward

7. Peter Wallace

8. Sam McKendry

9. James Segeyaro

10. Reagan Campbell-Gillard

11. Trent Merrin

12. Bryce Cartwright

13. Elijah Taylor

14. Tyrone Peachey

15. Leilani Latu

16. Issah Yeo

17. Jeremy Latimore

Strengths

Matt Moylan is one of the NRL’s best and most established young fullbacks. He was recently named club captain, and as we saw last year, he needs to be fit and firing if the squad is to do well. The second Moylan went down injured, the team’s attacking potency fell off, desperately missing the tries he set up.

Heck in 2015 before his injury he was ahead of Johnathan Thurston in try assists, and was leading the Dally Ms with Aaron Woods.



There is talk of Moylan eventually moving to the halves, which I can see (even if he played pretty poorly there in that one trial recently), especially since it would give Penrith a long-term replacement for Jamie Soward and would put Dallin Watene-Zelezniak at fullback, who looked decent there last year. However that should wait while Sowwie can provide another acceptable year or two.

The Panthers’ 1-5 players are of good quality. DWZ is essentially Roger Tuivasa-Sheck 2.0 – a good winger who is just biding his time until he can move to fullback. While the loss of Moylan hurt the Panthers in terms of their attacking potency, DWZ did a fine job at the back, demonstrating some excellent kick returns and creating linebreaks.

Peta Hiku was moved on from Manly in the off-season to accommodate Dylan Walker. Hiku had an up-and-down 2015, but most of that can be blamed on the fact that he played on the wing, and he is a fullback or a centre. At Penrith he will likely play in the centres, where he will shine.

Dean Whare is one of the best centres in the game, particularly defensively, and is an auto-pick in the New Zealand side. He too had a bad 2015 due to injuries, but should fire up this year.

Finally, Josh Mansour is basically what Akuila Uate used to be: a line-break machine who runs powerfully. However, like most of this side, he is injury prone.

The Panthers forward pack ranges from decent to above average. Merrin will prove to be an excellent buy, and the premiership winner and Origin player will help bridge the experience gap from the loss of Brent Kite and Nigel Plum. Merrin plays with just the right amount of grub and aggression, and was a shining star for the Dragons last year. With most of the forwards in the Penrith pack being younger players, they neeed a solid leader, and at 26, Merrin is sure to have a good few years at the foot of the mountains.

James Segeyaro is a real livewire from dummyhalf, and when he is on song terrorises defence. Unfortunately he is coming off of a lacklustre 2015, however that was mostly due to injury. Expect him to bounce back in 2016, once again causing headaches among opposition coaches and players with his timely runs.

Reagan Campbell-Gillard was the second-best rookie prop last year. He started off as an impact player and was so good that he was soon promoted to a starting player, which he will keep this year.



Elijah Taylor is a workhorse second rower who makes scary tackle numbers – in fact he has the record for the most tackles made in a game that didn’t go to golden point, with a total of 77. I have a feeling he may leave Penrith at the end of the year with their signing of Chris Grevsmuhl, but he will still provide valuable service this year.

Bryce Cartwright is already on the radar for an Origin call up, despite 2015 being his first real season of first grade. He played 22 games last year, and was one of the form players in the game for a period. He did have a few weak performances, but he will be a better player when he develops consistency. Cartwright creates excitement, but is more than willing to make metres and do work in defence. He has a bright future.

Weaknesses

That’s a lot of strengths, but they’re going to come tenth, so what will make them miss the eight?

Firstly, the halves.

I have met Panthers fans who brag about their spine, but really they only have a good fullback and dummy half. The halves just aren’t very good.

Peter Wallace may be a former Origin player, and was a good foil to Darren Lockyer, but ever since Lockyer retired at the end of 2011 he hasn’t done much. And 2015 was his worst year yet.

Wallace played minimal games, but looked lost in most of those, especially when Soward was injured. He just isn’t a dominant playmaker, which would be fine if Penrith had one to pair with him, but Soward isn’t that sort of player anymore.

Also, as with many Penrith players, Wallace is injury prone, so half the time he isn’t even on the field. Plus, do you really think Wallace will play well under coach Anthony Griffn? Those two didn’t get along so well by the end of Wallace’s time in Brisbane.



To top it all off, the redhead is an absolute turnstile in defence, and needs to be protected so the opposition doesn’t run over the top of him. Yes, you can be a little lacklustre defensively if you are a half – look at Johnathon Thurston – but you need to make up for that with attack, which Wallace cannot do.

If I was Griffin I wouldn’t play Wallace, I would stick Te Maire Martin there from Round 1, but that makes too much sense for Griffin (we will get to him later).

I rate Soward higher than Wallace, and don’t understand the insane amount of hate he gets. However, he has a great kicking game, but has an average running and passing game. He was great in 2014, but disappointing in 2015; you will get another acceptable year out of him, but he needs to be moved on after this season.

Then there’s Griffin, whose past decisions have just been strange. I still am racking my brain as to why you would fire Ivan Cleary – the guy who led the Warriors to a grand final and Penrith to a top-four finish – for someone who has had one year I would call successful. That successful year was 2011, coming on the back of incredible form during Lockyer’s retirement year. Ever since, ‘Hook’ has underachieved, making questionable decisions in both recruiting and player positioning.

Griffin put Josh Hoffman – a guy who can’t pass to save his life – at five-eighth on multiple occasions. He also gifted the world with Matt Gillett at five-eighth in that qualifying final against Manly in 2011. He moved Corey Parker to the front row, played Justin Hodges at fullback, and was using Ben Hunt as an impact dummyhalf.

However his dumbest move was letting Corey Norman, Wallace and Scott Prince all go in 2013, leaving Hunt – then a mediocre bench dummyhalf – as the only viable halves option for 2014. While it may have led to Hunt’s discovery, it was almost certainly unintentional.

I do not trust Griffin to not do something stupid like moving Mansour to the second row, or subbing Segeyaro off to play Soward at dummyhalf, or playing Dean Whare at fullback to cover an injury to Moylan instead of using Hiku or DWZ.

Expectations

This is a team full of decent players but no one amazing. Yeah, you have Moylan, Cartwright and Segeyaro but none of them are superstars. The side is full of either promising players or just decent ones, and with weak halves and a bad coach, I cannot see them getting through the logjam that will engulf positions 3-13 on the ladder.



Also, I am again worried that another injury epidemic will strike, after the past two years I just cannot trust their players to stay healthy.

Solid squad, bad halves and a bad coach? They will finish tenth.

Conclusion

What the hell is the cause of these injuries Penrith suffer? It can’t just be bad luck, and it shouldn’t have anything to do with training, since none were soft-tissue-damage injuries.

Fortunately, they have some of the best depth in the comp.

Penrith really are building for the future, and with Nathan Cleary, Zach Doackar-Clay and Te Maire Martin all in their lower grades they have the blueprints for a fantastic future spine. But they need to get rid of Griffin if they want to capitalise on this.