WITH captain Stephen Crichton out injured, Canterbury have inflicted Penrith’s first loss of the season.
The Bulldogs raced to a 16-0 lead in the first half and then staved off a scary Penrith comeback, replacement forward Sitili Tupouniua scoring the decisive try with nine minutes to go on the way to a 32-16 win in front of 23,984.
It was an unfortunate 200th first grade game for Panthers captain Nathan Cleary. It just wasn’t the night of the premiership favourites, whose centre Casey McLean spent time in the sin bin during the first half.
“Rugby league’s the ultimate leveller,” said Panthers co-captain Isaah Yeo. “It might be better to stop some of that noise, people talking about going unbeaten throughout the season.
“That’s not the case now … our destiny’s still in front of us … we actually took a little step back tonight.”
The Bulldogs scored the first 16 points, conceded the next 16, then posted the next 16.
The defeat was compounded by a likely medial knee ligament injury to key Panthers forward Liam Martin. “He’s not in a a lot of pain or stiffness or anything so that might be good,” said coach Ivan Cleary.
Cleary’s opposite, Cameron Ciraldo, said: “We started well and we competed for 80 minutes.
“We probably had two poor halves of footy to start the season but other than that we’ve been pretty good.”
On star halfback Lachy Galvin, the coach said: “It was his 50th game tonight. A lot of people say it takes 50 to feel like an NRL player and to understand it a lot.
“I thought he was brilliant. He controlled the game for long periods. He did what he had to do. He didn’t overplay his hand.”
Cleary was philosophical, joking the Dogs played like “they were getting ready for Origin camp.
“Credit to the Dogs. They were much better than we were, I thought … they were just harder than we were,” he said.
“We were definitely on the back foot and it was probably something we hadn’t dealt with in a long time.
“We got reminded what a good hard game of footy looks like.”
CANTERBURY 32 (Kikau Kiraz Hughes Preston Tupouniua tries Burton 6 goals) beat PENRITH 16 (Jenkins 2 Edwards tries Cleary 2 goals) at Accor Stadium.
Teams:
CANTERBURY: Connor Tracey; Jacob Kiraz, Enari Tuala, Bronson Xerri, Marcelo Montoya; Matt Burton, Lachlan Galvin; Max King, Bailey Hayward, Samuel Hughes, Viliame Kikau, Jacob Preston, Jaeman Salmon. Res: Kurt Mann, Sitili Tupouniua, Harry Hayes, Jake Turpin, Lipoi Hopoi, Jethro Rinikana.
PENRITH: Dylan Edwards; Thomas Jenkins, Paul Alamoti, Casey McLean, Brian To’o; Blaize Talagi, Nathan Cleary (c); Moses Leota, Mitch Kenny, Lindsay Smith, Isaiah Papali’i, Liam Martin, Isaah Yeo. Res: Jack Cogger, Billy Phillips, Scott Sorensen, Luke Garner, Izack Tago, Joey Lussick.
Referee: Gerard Suttton.
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