These are the four rookie Panthers tasked with keeping Penrith’s championship winning streak going while some of the club’s big guns are either injured or in Origin camp. Debutants Trent Toelau and Preston Riki, as well as Mavrik Geyer and Jesse McLean, with a combined five NRL games of experience, can help catapult the Panthers to the top of the league if they defeat St George Illawarra at home on Saturday night.
Clubs impacted by the State of Origin series have always had to rely on their depth.
Who can forget the Baby Broncos. Back in 2002, seven debutants stunned the Wests Tigers with Craig Bellamy deputising for coach Wayne Bennett.
The Panthers have gradually had their roster picked apart because of their premiership success in recent years, but with no Nathan Cleary (hamstring), Dylan Edwards, Isaah Yeo, Brian To’o, Jarome Luai or Liam Martin – who collectively boast 874 games of NRL experience – never has the club been forced to dig so deep into their reserves.
Penrith had four debutants in the final round of the regular season in 2002, but that was to give some of their big guns a rest before the finals rather than out of necessity.
Geyer, the son of club legend Mark Geyer, said the young Panthers had prepared for this moment all summer.
“I feel like this is what we’ve been practising for all pre-season, we knew around the Origin period we’d have less numbers, and an opportunity for us young lads to have a crack and prove ourselves to the older boys that we belong here,” Geyer told this masthead.
I’ve been here three years, I’ve trained with the boys, watched what they do and learned their habits, so when it is my time, you know you don’t have to re-invent the wheels and simply do your job
The coaching staff, ‘Iv’ [Ivan Cleary] and (assistants) ‘Wal’ [Peter Wallace] and ‘BG’ [Ben Gardiner] keep it simple for us young lads. All you have to do is worry about your job first, and worry about what you can do to help the team. That’s as simple as it gets.”
Riki is a 26-year-old back-rower who broke down when making the phone call to his grandmother in New Zealand that he was about to finally realise his first-grade dream.
And Toelau, 24, who was born in Victoria and started in the Storm system, has been a standout in the halves in NSW Cup.
I’ve been playing with Riki for a number of years, and he’s always been a difficult bugger. He’s come a long way [to reach the NRL], but his resilience and determination to keep grinding and working is why he’s given this opportunity,” Geyer said. “And Trent was in and out of our Cup team last year, but this year he has been one of our finest. We had seven wins to start the year, and he was named man of the match in probably five of them. This is his time.
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