{"id":838404,"date":"2026-08-01T19:55:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T19:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/838404\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T19:55:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T19:55:34","slug":"massacre-in-mudgee-panthers-demolish-raiders-the-western-weekender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/838404\/","title":{"rendered":"Massacre in Mudgee: Panthers demolish Raiders \u2022 The Western Weekender"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Liam Martin scores for Penrith. Photo: NRL Photos.<\/p>\n

The Roosters made a statement. The Warriors did too.<\/p>\n

Then Penrith declared, hold my beer.<\/p>\n

The Panthers demolished Canberra 42-18 in Mudgee tonight, confirming their status as Premiership favourites ahead of a blockbuster fortnight for Ivan Cleary\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

There was no miracle for the Raiders tonight, completely outplayed by Penrith despite scoring the first try.<\/p>\n

Liam Martin grabbed his first career double in the opening half while Thomas Jenkins added two more tries to his ever-growing tally and Jaxen Edgar scored his first NRL try.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Jaxen Edgar scored his first NRL try. Photo: NRL Photos.<\/p>\n

It took Penrith until the 56th minute to get on the board in the second half, with Liam Henry crashing over to extinguish any hope of a Raiders comeback.<\/p>\n

The Raiders rallied with two late tries, before Isaiah Papali\u2019i grabbed the last four-pointer of the game in the dying minutes.<\/p>\n

Penrith will now take on the Warriors and Roosters in consecutive weeks in what will be a case of September footy come early.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Nathan Cleary was strong with the boot. Photo: NRL Photos.<\/p>\n

Panthers coach Ivan Cleary was happy with the way his side responded to conceding the first try.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did feel good. It wasn\u2019t a great start but we corrected it really quickly which was a good sign,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started the game defensively waiting for it to happen. We needed to be a bit more proactive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canberra coach Ricky Stuart said his side\u2019s performance \u201cwasn\u2019t good enough\u201d, while captain Joe Tapine said they didn\u2019t execute their game plan.<\/p>\n

Penrith\u2019s Brian To\u2019o celebrated his 150th game with a win, but is still chasing his elusive 100th NRL try.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Brian To\u2019o celebrates his 150th NRL game with family in Mudgee. Photo: NRL Photos.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Troy Dodds is the Weekender’s Managing Editor and Breaking News Reporter. He has more than 20 years experience as a journalist, working with some of Australia’s leading media organisations. In 2023, he was named Editor of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Martin scores for Penrith. Photo: NRL Photos. The Roosters made a statement. The Warriors did too. Then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":838405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-838404","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\/838404","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=838404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}