{"id":139758,"date":"2025-09-13T08:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/139758\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T08:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:38:11","slug":"panthers-keep-dream-of-five-alive-with-gritty-nrl-elimination-final-win-over-warriors-nrl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/139758\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers keep dream of five alive with gritty NRL elimination final win over Warriors | NRL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penrith\u2019s quest for a fifth consecutive premiership is alive and kicking after Nathan Cleary ignited a gritty 24-8 win that ends the Warriors\u2019 NRL<\/a> season.<\/p>\n

The talismanic halfback hoisted the Panthers back into Saturday\u2019s elimination final after a spirited start from a Warriors side roundly dismissed as finals cannon fodder.<\/p>\n

The Warriors\u2019 season had lost momentum following injuries to Luke Metcalf and Mitch Barnett, but the hosts never let the visitors breathe easily in greasy Auckland conditions.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until centre Casey McLean iced a superb 80m team try that the Panthers looked on track, taking a 10-point lead in the last 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Troubled by a groin injury earlier in the year, Cleary handed over goal-kicking duties to Dylan Edwards late in the game but saw the game out and continued to kick in play.<\/p>\n

The win books the Panthers a semi-final date against Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a> at Accor Stadium next week, with the winner to face either Canberra or Brisbane in a grand-final qualifier.<\/p>\n

The win continues quite the run for the four-time reigning premiers, who were last on the ladder after 12 rounds of the season.<\/p>\n

They are the only team in premiership history to win a finals match after being the bottom club so late in a season and are now dreaming of making more history as the finals series wages on.<\/p>\n

Cleary was on song for the Panthers, proving particularly effective at gaining back momentum in the first half with his kicking game.<\/p>\n

His side down 2-0 with 15 minutes before half-time, the 27-year-old made the gutsy decision to kick on the third tackle as the Panthers made a raid into enemy territory.<\/p>\n

Paul Alamoti, replacing the axed Tom Jenkins, was outstanding and led the cover defence to lock Warriors fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad in the corner of the field.<\/p>\n

In the next attacking set, Cleary threw a cut-out pass for super-sub Isaiah Papali\u2019i to score the Panthers\u2019 opening try.<\/p>\n

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Deputising for injured hooker Mitch Kenny, Brad Schneider bolstered the lead after the break fooling Nicoll-Klokstad and Kurt Capewell to score out of dummy half.<\/p>\n

But the Warriors were disciplined with the ball despite the conditions and struck back through rookie-of-the-year candidate Leka Halasima on the right.<\/p>\n

The Panthers had a two-score lead after Cleary\u2019s bomb bounced away from Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and into the arms of a flying Luke Garner.<\/p>\n

Blaize Talagi grabbed a suspect pass and kicked to the left, where Brian To\u2019o continued the charge and put McLean over for a sparkling team try.<\/p>\n

On return from two weeks\u2019 rest, To\u2019o sealed the result scooping up an errant ball from Halasima and sprinting 60 metres to score.<\/p>\n

Papali\u2019i went on report for a high shot on Chanel Harris-Tavita in the second half, but looks unlikely to miss time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penrith\u2019s quest for a fifth consecutive premiership is alive and kicking after Nathan Cleary ignited a gritty 24-8…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-139758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}