\u2014 reporting by AAP<\/p>\n
Incumbent NSW fullback Dylan Edwards has sent a timely reminder of his State of Origin credentials by inspiring red-hot Penrith to a 44-12 thrashing of Newcastle at Hunter Stadium.<\/p>\n
Less than 24 hours after nearest Origin challenger James Tedesco starred for the Sydney Roosters on Anzac Day, Edwards scored a first-half hat-trick on Sunday to ensure the premiership favourites remained ensconced atop the ladder.<\/p>\n
The win puts paid to any concerns over Penrith’s past fortnight, when the Panthers fell to patchy Canterbury and then squeaked past the 12th-placed Dolphins.<\/p>\n
But on Sunday, the Panthers recaptured their brutal best and dominated their hosts.<\/p>\n
Tom Jenkins’ remarkable streak of try-scoring doubles ended at seven games, with Penrith’s left winger unable to find the chalk against his old club.<\/p>\n
Edwards had no such problems against the Knights.<\/p>\n
Newcastle did well to weather an early Penrith onslaught, but the levee broke after 12 and a half minutes, with Edwards skipping between Fletcher Hunt and Sandon Smith on the fifth tackle.<\/p>\n
The error-prone Knights took 15 minutes to play the ball in the Panthers’ half, but in that first set Hunt spilt the ball and Edwards scooped it up.<\/p>\n
The fullback ran 65 metres for his second try.<\/p>\n
Edwards had his second NRL hat-trick inside 20 minutes of game time when a Moses Leota break put the Panthers in position for another attacking raid.<\/p>\n
Again, it was the fullback on the end of offloads from Lindsay Smith and Isaah Yeo.<\/p>\n
Marquee man Dylan Brown looked the likeliest to inspire a Knights comeback, sprinting 60 metres for a brilliant individual try.<\/p>\n
But Edwards put the result beyond doubt, throwing a cut-out pass for Brian To’o to score the first of his two tries and give the visitors a four-score lead with 15 minutes to play.<\/p>\n
For his part, star halfback Nathan Cleary continued his great season by nabbing a first-half try on the back of a 40-metre tear from Paul Alamoti.<\/p>\n
Out-of-favour Izack Tago came on for some rare game time at right second row as the Panthers continue to account for Liam Martin’s absence through injury.<\/p>\n
He snaffled a diabolical offload from Knights recruit Trey Mooney in the red zone to help the Panthers pass 40.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2014 reporting by AAP Incumbent NSW fullback Dylan Edwards has sent a timely reminder of his State of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[303032,64,63,160,158,120081,159,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-631499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-anzac-round","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-live-blog","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-round-eight","14":"tag-rugby-league","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631499","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=631499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}