A frustrated Ivan Cleary lamented the Panthers’ start to their 25-6 loss to the Knights in what was a “pretty tough night” which cemented the reigning premiers at the bottom of the ladder.
Travelling to Bathurst, Penrith allowed Newcastle to score a quarter of tries inside 23 minutes before stopping them from reaching the tryline for the remainder of the game.
Fullback Fletcher Sharpe ran riot with an early four-pointer before Dylan Lucas scored a 14-minute hattrick, bumping off multiple defenders on his way to a 12-point tally.
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Speaking in the post-match press conference, Cleary put the boot into his struggling squad who are in 17th after 12 rounds.
“Just super disappointed with the start. We just were overrun at the start of the game, a game like this when we are down on troops,” Cleary said.
“That’s the worst start we could find so confidence was down early and it became a pretty tough night.
“The first two tries, there was a six again and there was a penalty so it was a lot of tackles in a row. But at the start of the game I feel like we can definitely do better than that.
“So all of a sudden you are down troops and you are down on the scoreboard, down on possession and down on everything. It makes it a really difficult game from there.
“I was happy with the way they got in there and fought back, showed a bit of metal in the second half there.”
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The Panthers were missing a host of players, with Liam Martin, Isaah Yeo, Dylan Edwards and Nathan Cleary on Origin duty for NSW.
Meanwhile, Luke Garner, Mav Geyer and Isaiah Papali’i were all sidelined due to injuries, which saw an inexperienced side go down to the 16th placed Knights.
“There was a lot of guys out but you have got to go through it and learn from the experience,” Cleary said.
“But that’s not going to hide the fact that we just weren’t good enough at the start of the game, and that’s going to put you under the pump in any game.
“And when you are missing so many of your good players it is only going to make it harder.”
Stand-in skipper Mitch Kenny echoed his coach’s sentiment, explaining the Panthers could not reel in their opponents after going down 24-0 early in the clash.
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“Just a bit of a lack of resilience in the first half, when we lost momentum we just made it too difficult to get it back,” he said.
“We couldn’t stop the bleeding, our defence was ordinary… we just made it really hard for ourselves.”
So what’s the solution?
“Win games. It’s not where you want to be, but it’s like what is more important at the moment is how far you are away from everyone else,” Cleary said.
“Not just on the ladder but in terms of playing potential. I think we have shown this year… we have the potential to be doing much better.
“But you can only rely on potential for so long. A lot of things didn’t go our way tonight, but no matter who we had tonight we can do better than what we showed in that first half.”
