{"id":31546,"date":"2025-07-30T03:41:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/31546\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T03:41:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:41:12","slug":"edwards-praises-form-of-penriths-young-stars-the-western-weekender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/31546\/","title":{"rendered":"Edwards praises form of Penrith’s young stars \u2022 The Western Weekender"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Champion Penrith fullback Dylan Edwards. Photo: Melinda Jane.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the fullback for his state, country and of course the four-time premiership-winning Panthers, but Dylan Edwards admits he\u2019s still learning on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n

Since returning from another gruelling State of Origin campaign, the 29-year-old has been on fire over the past fortnight \u2013 scoring three tries, kicking five goals, and running an average 313m per game.<\/p>\n

As one of Penrith\u2019s leaders, Edwards is proving an inspiration to his teammates, in particular the young brigade who are in the midst of their first full season in the NRL.<\/p>\n

Speaking with the Weekender this week, Edwards says he\u2019s been impressed with how the likes of Thomas Jenkins, Casey McLean and Blaize Talagi have been performing over the past two months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been really impressed with the performances they\u2019ve been putting in consistently at the moment. It\u2019s really impressive for a young group of guys,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are working really hard on the training paddock, and they have been for months, so I\u2019m happy that they are building their season and are playing really well at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t that long ago that things weren\u2019t going so well for the Panthers. Not only did the team drop five on the trot earlier this year, but they were also languishing at the bottom of the table following a thrashing to the Knights in Bathurst.<\/p>\n

Edwards said he\u2019s proud at how his teammates, especially the younger ones, were able to overcome the challenges of earlier in the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sort of adversity and resilience they had to build from earlier in the year is going to serve them well, hopefully, throughout their long careers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey learned some tough lessons early but were able to ride that wave and come out the other side.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are still learning obviously but they are playing good footy at the moment, and they are working hard towards that.\u201d<\/p>\n

If anyone knows anything about adversity it\u2019s Edwards, who also endured a tough start to his NRL career.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, with hard work and perseverance, he was able to turn his career around and is now one of the premier fullbacks of the competition.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dylan Edwards chats with Nathan Taylor. Photo: NRL Photos.<\/p>\n

Edwards said despite his extensive resume that includes a Clive Churchill Medal, he\u2019s still learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely still learning,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as you play this game, you\u2019re finding little lessons here and there. Rugby league is the ultimate leveller\u2026 as soon as you think you\u2019ve got it figured out; it can quickly bring you back down to earth. As long as I\u2019m playing the game, I\u2019m still learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now sitting in fifth position, the Panthers will look to further cement their place in the top eight when they battle the Titans on the Gold Coast this Saturday at 3pm.<\/p>\n

Edwards said Des Hasler\u2019s men are probably better than the position they currently find themselves in, 16th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t far off beating the Tigers the week before either \u2013 they just got pipped there. And they beat a top four side last week over in New Zealand, which is really impressive, and you expect them to be even better at home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are playing some good footy, they play a dangerous brand of footy, and we\u2019ll have to play our best if we want to beat them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nathan Taylor<\/p>\n

Nathan Taylor is the Weekender’s Deputy Editor and Senior Sports Writer. He also compiles the weekly Chatter on the Box TV column. Nathan is an award-winning journalist, who has worked at the Weekender for a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Champion Penrith fullback Dylan Edwards. Photo: Melinda Jane. He\u2019s the fullback for his state, country and of course…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-31546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31546","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=31546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}