{"id":96804,"date":"2025-08-26T09:25:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T09:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/96804\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T09:25:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T09:25:14","slug":"penrith-panthers-make-16-changes-as-ivan-cleary-opts-to-rest-stars-with-a-combined-1943-games-of-nrl-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/96804\/","title":{"rendered":"Penrith Panthers make 16 changes as Ivan Cleary opts to rest stars with a combined 1,943 games of NRL experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penrith has left close to 2,000 games of first-grade experience on ice for its grudge match with Canterbury as it looks to become the first team from outside the top four to win a premiership in the NRL era.<\/p>\n

After successive golden-point defeats to Melbourne and Canberra left the Panthers needing a miracle to claim a top-four finish, coach Ivan Cleary has chosen to make 16 changes to the side which fell to the Raiders in Mudgee.<\/p>\n

With players including Isaah Yeo, Nathan Cleary, Moses Leota and Brian To’o rested, coach Cleary has sat out a whopping 1,943 games of NRL experience for Thursday’s game at Stadium Australia.<\/p>\n

Brad Schneider, who was named on the bench but did not take the field against Canberra, is the sole survivor and will play halfback in a team which includes four NRL debutants and will start as $8 outsiders.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Austin Dias and Riley Price, the son of Bulldogs great Steve Price, will make their Panthers debuts in a side to be captained by lock Matt Eisenhuth.<\/p>\n

Penrith’s top-eight spot is locked in but it needs an unlikely series of results to go its way to fall into the top four.<\/p>\n

The Panthers \u2014 currently seventh \u2014 would not be afforded the luxury of a week off in the finals series if they finish between fifth and eighth.<\/p>\n

Since the NRL era began in 1998, no side has won the premiership from outside the top four.<\/p>\n

There is clearly some logic to Cleary’s thinking as he looks to defend the Panthers’ four-straight premierships.<\/p>\n

By resting his key men on Thursday, Penrith will at least have a freshen-up ahead of next week’s final regular season game against St George Illawarra.<\/p>\n

The Panthers should then be recharged and ready to defend their crown in the finals, where they could face four weeks of knockout games.<\/p>\n

Word began to trickle out on Monday that Penrith were set to rest their top-line stars, prompting a betting plunge on Canterbury after the Panthers had opened as favourites.<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs have shortened to $1.10 despite the fact they will be without Viliame Kikau due to a skin infection, and prop Harry Hayes.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penrith has left close to 2,000 games of first-grade experience on ice for its grudge match with Canterbury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,50661,5094,5098,1203,761,762,158,4598,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-96804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brian-too","11":"tag-isaah-yeo","12":"tag-ivan-cleary","13":"tag-nathan-cleary","14":"tag-national-rugby-league","15":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","16":"tag-nrl","17":"tag-penrith-panthers","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96804","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=96804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}