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The Panthers<\/a> will overcome a massive blow to their spine and get back to winning ways in the western Sydney derby<\/a>, according to Andrew Johns<\/a>.<\/p>\n Penrith remain the red-hot favourites to win their fifth premiership in six years this season but their charge back to the top of the mountain has hit a significant bump at the back end of the Origin<\/a> period, with Ivan Cleary<\/a>\u2019s side losing three of their last four games.<\/p>\n Absent Panthers fullback Dylan Edwards.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n That period has been interrupted by two byes, meaning the Panthers have only tasted victory once since thumping the Wests Tigers 68-0<\/a> way back on June 7.<\/p>\n Rather than having the minor premiership on ice, the Panthers \u2014 atop the ladder<\/a> by a solitary win \u2014 have been dragged into a battle with the Warriors<\/a> and Roosters<\/a>, both two points behind, for that title.<\/p>\n If they\u2019re to hold on to top spot and a guaranteed home qualifying final, the Panthers urgently need to return to winning ways and that quest has been dented by the late omission of Dylan Edwards<\/a>, who has been mysteriously pulled from the team named to take on the Eels on Thursday night.<\/p>\n Regardless of that significant personnel blow, Johns is adamant that Panthers fans have nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve lost three of their last four but don\u2019t worry,\u201d Johns told Wide World of Sports\u2019 NRL Tips<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a hangover after Origin, they\u2019ll come good. I think they\u2019ll win, but I think it\u2019ll be tight for 50 minutes, but Panthers will win by two or three tries.\u201d<\/p>\n The Panthers have shifted aerial specialist and try scoring whiz Tom Jenkins to fullback to cover for Edwards, with Izack Tago returning to the starting side from the extended bench at centre and Paul Alamoti shuffled to the wing.<\/p>\n Even with that disruption it\u2019s still a classy back five for the Eels to grapple with in a week when their club has been in the headlines due to a player who hasn\u2019t even arrived yet.<\/p>\n Eels coach Jason Ryles<\/a> was this week forced to stand up and defend the club\u2019s decision to sign four-time premiership five-eighth Jarome Luai<\/a> on a one-year deal that is effectively a stopover before he becomes the face of expansion club the PNG Chiefs in 2028.<\/p>\n Ryles sent a message of sorts to the young playmakers like Ronald Volkman and Joash Papalii who are already on the Eels roster in his response to the noise around Luai\u2019s signing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re sitting in a spot on the ladder (15th) at the moment where we don\u2019t want to be, and it\u2019s no-one\u2019s fault directly, but we need more experienced players and Jarome fits that bill,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jason Ryles speaks to media\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all excited about Jarome\u2019s arrival. He brings a lot of experience to our spine and he\u2019s a competitor, and (with) all the background we\u2019ve done on him, he\u2019s very big on his training standards and his extras.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will be great for our younger guys to see that and watch it in action first-hand.\u201d<\/p>\n Volkman has been named at five-eighth for Thursday night\u2019s game, partnering the returning Moses, while Papalii is on the extended bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brought to you by The Panthers will overcome a massive blow to their spine and get back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-818003","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\/818003","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=818003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ebef1ea152a7bea4e221451952f56902e6bff39b.jpeg\")
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