And yet, with all the video, information, staff and resources, 16 clubs over the last 5 years still can't match them.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the rest of the competition can't even manage to do that well enough.
No one is saying they aren’t extremely successful. That doesn’t mean you have to enjoy watching it.
I prefer my league as it was played by mercurial, eyes up players like cliffy lyons, adventurous attacking players like Turbo 2021, Walsh, etc, bone crunching forwards who could change a match like Spud Carroll, Ron Gibbs etc.
I think the panthers have taken the game to its perfect state under the current rules of the game, that reward holding rather than tackling, cynically peeling off tackled players timed to the millisecond, methodically working shapes to create an eventual overlap for a try to To’o in the corner, sticking to a preplanned system of what to do on each tackle at each point on the field, etc etc.
I realise the game has changed, and to be quite frank, I find the game in general much less entertaining than it used to be. Penrith are like watching a team of robots going through their program. Sure it’s effective, but for me, it falls a long way short of entertaining.