Cleary makes cheeky ‘World Cup’ dig after two sin bins
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Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has taken a cheeky “World Cup” swipe after his side had two players sin binned in a nervy win over the Eels.
In a strange 80 minutes at CommBank Stadium, it was Parramatta who took the lead into the break after a strong start from captain Mitchell Moses, but they were ultimately run down by the Panthers and lost 24-18 on Thursday night.
Mitchell Moses celebrates his side’s opening try. Getty Images
Penrith had players sin binned - Tom Jenkins and Isaiah Papali’i - in each half, but still managed to find enough to hold off their cross-town rivals.
In what ended up being the final play of the first half, Eels winger Brian Kelly grubbered for himself and as he went to chase the ball, was pushed by Jenkins.
Bunker official Ashley Klein deemed that Jenkins had “played the man” and there was even a suggestion from Billy Slater that it could be a penalty try.
“Absolutely [it could be] ... given how close he got, this has gotta be more than a penalty - he gets his hand to the football,” Slater said on Nine.
Andrew Johns brushed off calls for a penalty try, but Klein did rule it a professional foul and on-field referee Gerard Sutton quickly marched Jenkins.
“That’s a big call right on half time,” Johns said.
Penrith faced more pressure mid-way through the second half when back-rower Papali’i was also forced off for a 10-minute break for a professional foul.
After a clean break, Moses crept up in support for the Eels but was dragged back without the ball by Papali’i, who was penalised and binned for the incident.
He tried to protest with the referee, but it fell on deaf ears.
When asked about the two incidents in his post-game press conference, Cleary kept a cool head but did make one interesting comment, seemingly in relation to the off-ball challenge from Papali’i on Moses in the second half.
“I think if you put hand on someone, the gun is loaded so see you later,” he said.
“I was gonna say, I’ve been watching the World Cup for a while, they’d have a lot of blokes in the bin wouldn’t they? It was a long way behind the play, but anyway.”
At the time, Johns made a joke on commentary that Moses was “acting” to get a penalty and made a reference to him getting a gig on Married At First Sight, to which the coach and captain Isaah Yeo both smirked post-game.
Isaiah Papali’i grabs at Mitchell Moses off the ball. Nine
The hosts started hot when Ronald Volkman placed a pinpoint chip kick for his halves partner Moses to leap above the pack and score under the posts.
Penrith were all out of sorts early on and that was evident when halfback Nathan Cleary had a rare slip-up, failing to find touch from a penalty kick.
Moses continued his strong opening half when he put Jack Williams through a gaping hole for Parramatta’s second try of the night.
The ladder-leaders hit back when Jenkins - as he so often does - soared through the air and got an offload to Casey McLean, who managed to score a freakish try despite nearly being bundled into touch by Will Penisini.
“How did he get there? He must be so strong ... no way, what about that,” Johns said in disbelief on commentary as replays showed McLean’s try.
Despite being down a man to start the second stanza, Penrith surged towards the lead when enforcers Liam Henry and Liam Martin both scored.
Jenkins put the result beyond doubt when he chased through a wonky kick to score his 26th try of the year - the new record for Penrith - while Papali’i was off.
“They have played really dumb in the second half the Eels ... you just can’t do that against champion teams,” Johns said on commentary after Jenkins’ try.
Mitchell Moses reacts during the Eels’ loss. Getty Images
Williams scored again for Parramatta with less than two minutes remaining, but a last-ditch effort to force the game to extra time fell short in the dying stages.
Eels coach Jason Ryles admitted his side’s execution and game awareness was an issue, but did concede some crucial refereeing decisions went against them.
“Yeah definitely - every week I can come in and have a little dig, which I choose not to because I understand how hard the job is,” Ryles said of the officials.
“I thought with BK’s try, if he impeded him to get the ball and he got so close to the ball, it was possibly a penalty try, I don’t know. Then there was one where there was a knock-on into a forward pass - it was like gridiron.
“It’s disappointing when we have so much technology and we’re willing to use it at times and at other times, we just don’t. You can always look back at little things like that, but we were our own worst enemy and those little things add to it.
“We definitely put ourselves in the contest - we won a lot of parts of the game and generally at the end when you look at it, they’re indicators you won the game.
“I’m incredibly proud of the effort and fight we showed and we continue to show … but unfortunately, fight and effort only get you so far.
“We need to tidy up our execution, there were moments where [we gave away] six-agains on the last play a couple times, penalties on play one out of yardage, which put ourselves under pressure - just things that are really avoidable.”
