{"id":553367,"date":"2026-03-20T18:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/553367\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T18:41:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T18:41:21","slug":"panthers-belt-roosters-definitely-nrls-form-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/553367\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers belt Roosters, ‘definitely’ NRL’s form team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trent Robinson says Penrith are clearly the NRL’s form team after Tom Jenkins scored four tries in a brutal 40-4 drubbing of his Sydney Roosters at Allianz Stadium.<\/p>\n

The ruthless Panthers rode a 24-4 halftime lead to their third consecutive defeat of a premiership heavyweight in as many games to start the new season.<\/p>\n

Penrith’s three wins have come by a combined score of 92-10 – the team’s most one-sided opening three rounds by points differential since Ivan Cleary returned as coach in 2019.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

“They’ve been definitely the form team to start the season,” said Roosters coach Robinson.<\/p>\n

Left winger Jenkins surged to the top of the try-scoring leaderboard with eight four-pointers for the year, Dylan Edwards bagged a double and Paul Alamoti toyed with the Roosters’ left edge all night.<\/p>\n

Intimidatingly, the Panthers still have room to improve. They missed 47 tackles to the Roosters’ 40 and gave away twice as many six-agains.<\/p>\n

But there is no question Penrith are well on the way to recapturing their four-time premiership-winning best following a roller-coaster 2025 season.<\/p>\n

“I still think there’s a long way to go. It’s round three,” said halfback Nathan Cleary.<\/p>\n

“But in terms of this point, definitely compared to last year, we’re streets ahead.”<\/p>\n

The Panthers were far too strong for the Roosters.\u00a0Photo by Brendon Thorne\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Penrith’s round-five clash against 2025 runners-up Melbourne shapes as the season’s biggest blockbuster yet.<\/p>\n

Friday’s match came with similar anticipation given Reece Robson’s recovery from a thumb injury meant the Roosters unveiling their new first-choice spine.<\/p>\n

The star-studded Tricolours had the first points through Robert Toia, but fell off the pace after 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

“(There’s a) Mike Tyson quote around ‘Everyone can fight until they get punched in the face’,” Robinson said.<\/p>\n

“We got punched in the face and we didn’t fight back. We might’ve danced around a bit, but it’s pretty clear what we need to do.”<\/p>\n

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In-form fullback Edwards swung momentum with a 30-metre break in the 15th minute to put Jenkins in position for the Panthers’ first try.<\/p>\n

Brian To’o had their second minutes later, poking a grubber kick through the line, regathering the ball and then scoring on the back of a second kick to himself.<\/p>\n

“I might ask him for a few tips on grubbers, they were deadset perfect,” said champion halfback Cleary.<\/p>\n

Alamoti had a field day marking journeyman centre Junior Pauga and orchestrated Penrith’s third in the set after To’o’s try.<\/p>\n

He began a 90-metre tear out of the backfield that ended with Edwards scoring the first of his two tries, the second coming in the final 10 minutes on the right side.<\/p>\n

Jenkins had a career-best fourth try when the Roosters batted a kick back to Penrith prop Moses Leota, who popped the ball up and ignited his winger’s 80m break.<\/p>\n

Coach Cleary felt Jenkins’ omission from last year’s finals campaign had spurred him on.<\/p>\n

“He came back with a real purpose. He made some adjustments physically in what he needed to do. He’s definitely had that hunger about him,” the coach said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trent Robinson says Penrith are clearly the NRL’s form team after Tom Jenkins scored four tries in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-553367","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\/553367","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=553367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}