NRL Finals Preview: Battle of the West ignites again at the foot of the mountains

The Penrith Panthers and Parramatta Eels will meet for the third time this season when they do battle Friday night at Penrith’s BlueBet Stadium with the victor to advance to a Grand Final qualifier.

The Eels ran out victors in both their Round 9 and Round 20 fixtures and have generally bothered the Panthers in recent times.

In their Round 9 encounter, the Eels came from behind to knock-off a then-undefeated Panthers outfit 22-20 in Penrith as Junior Paulo put together a Man of the Match performance for the blue-and-goals with 207 run metres from 23 carries and 26 tackles. Parramatta won the possession battle, completing six more sets and having their hands on the ball for an extra 4:21, despite Penrith finishing with a higher run metre and line break total.

The Eels got another one up on the Panthers in Round 20 when the sides met at CommBank Stadium with Nathan Cleary’s send-off and subsequent five-week ban for a spear tackle on Dylan Brown dominating the postgame discourse. The Eels ran away with it against a 12-man Panthers unit 34-10 with Reed Mahoney and Maika Sivo both bagging doubles. The Eels unsurprisingly dominated the possession and yardage battle that night, however, there was little for pundits to take out of the game scheme-wise given Cleary’s shock send-off.

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Penrith will be at full-strength for this one with 13 players from last year’s Grand Final winning 17 named as their bid for back-to-back premierships kicks off whilst Parramatta are also at full-strength having named the same 17 that took care of business against the Storm last weekend.

Prior to this season, the Panthers had won four in-a-row against the Eels including an 8-6 win in last year’s semi-final in Mackay and have also won six of their past nine against the Eels in Penrith, having not been held to single-digits by the Eels at the venue since 1988.

Penrith enter the clash with just three wins from their past six after winning 17 of their first 18 in what has been a disrupted period for the club with Cleary, Jarome Luai, Dylan Edwards and James Fisher-Harris all spending time on the sideline. The club opted to rest virtually all of their regular first-graders in their last-start loss to the Cowboys in Townsville leaving the squad refreshed for their huge Friday night clash.

Parramatta, meanwhile, finished their season with five wins from their final six averaging over 37 points in their five wins. They finished their regular season with an important win over Melbourne to secure a top four finish and the opportunity to travel to Penrith with a preliminary finals berth at stake.

If there is one side that can be pointed to that has managed to trouble Penrith over the past three seasons, it is the Eels; the clash should be an absolute belter to open the finals series in front of a rabid full-house at BlueBet Stadium.

The Panthers finished the regular season with the NRL’s second-best attack and best defence whilst the Eels finished fifth in attack and eighth in defence.

Penrith were also the premiership’s best yardage side with Parramatta finishing third so expect an intense battle through the centre of the field. The 22-point mark has been hit just twice in the previous 10 meetings between these sides so expect another defence-oriented clash with the playmakers – Cleary, Luai, and Koroisau versus Moses, Brown, and Gutherson – and strike edge players – Kikau and Crichton versus Lane and Papali’i – the game-breakers in attack.

Penrith are $1.39 favourites to come out on top with the bookmakers confident the defending premiers will punch their ticket to a third-straight preliminary final.

Kick-off: 7:50pm Friday at BlueBet Stadium, Penrith

Panthers: 1. Edwards; 2. May; 3. Tago; 4. Crichton; 5. To’o; 6 Luai; 7. Cleary (c); 8. Leota; 9. Koroisau; 10. Fisher-Harris; 11. Kikau; 12. Martin; 13. Yeo (c); 14. Kenny; 15. Sorensen; 16. Leniu; 17. Salmon; 18. Staines; 19. Eisenhuth; 20. Hopgood; 21. O’Sullivan; 22. Smith

Eels: 1. Gutherson (c); 2. Sivo; 3. Penisini; 4. Opacic; 5. Blake; 6. Brown; 7. Moses; 8. Campbell-Gillard; 9. Mahoney; 10 Paulo (c); 11. Lane; 12. Papali’i; 13. Matterson; 14. Makatoa; 15. Arthur; 16. Kaufusi; 17. Niukore; 18. Brown; 19. Cartwright; 20. Simonsson; 21. Ogden; 22. Rodwell

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