Nathan Cleary started from the bench for the first time in his 185-game NRL career to keep Penrith’s hopes of a fifth straight premiership alive.
The Panthers have now won five games in a row as they try to do likewise with premierships after getting the better of Parramatta 26-10 at CommBank Stadium on Sunday.
They are still five points adrift of the top four but they have the competition pacesetters looking over their shoulders after looking all but dead and buried earlier in the season after their 1-5 start to the year..
Cleary was given a late start, coming on after 25 minutes, following his midweek outing for NSW in Origin III and his old man, Ivan Cleary, also benched him with five minutes on the clock with the result well and truly locked up.
Blues teammate Liam Martin is out for 2-3 weeks with a hand injury while Dylan Edwards and Brian To’o also did not turn out for the Panthers after Origin III but Isaah Yeo turned out for club duty.
A loss would have meant the premiers would have tumbled out of the eight.
For the Eels, they are clearly on the right track under Jason Ryles’ rebuild with the coach looking to the future by switching Dylan Brown to hooker so that Joash Papalii could get a run at five-eighth.
Brown played the first half-hour at dummy-half and the Newcastle-bound Kiwi international got a late second stint as mid-season recruit Tallyn Da Silva turned out in new colours for the first time following his controversial switch from Wests Tigers.
“It was pretty weird,” Fox League’s Greg Alexander said about the Brown experiment. “The fact that he’s signed with Newcastle, he won’t be there and watching Dylan’s performances with and without Mitch Moses, I don’t know if the desire to do everything I possibly can to help the Eels win the game is ringing true.
“Stick him at hooker and if it’s not working, get him off. He’s not gonna be here next year, the season is probably gone, I need to blood other players and see who is going to play in certain positions for next season.”
Which is the Penrith legend’s polite way of saying Brown has put the cue in the rack for the rest of the season before he joins the Knights on a multimillion-dollar decade-long deal.
The Eels had the upper hand for most of the first half but coughed up the lead just before the break when Luke Garner scored after a terrible defensive effort from Zac Lomax, who went for an intercept rather than jamming in on the Panthers forward.
Izack Tago made it an eight-point buffer when he touched down in the 54th minute before another Lomax blunder proved the final nail in the blue and gold coffin.
He fumbled a pass with the line wide open and opposing winger Tom Jenkins returned the ball over halfway before the Panthers swung the ball wide to the other flank for Paul Alamoti to cap off a 12-point turnaround.
Cleary and prop Lindsay Smith blew out the final margin with tries in the closing stages.
Wounded Warriors topple Tigers
The Warriors have shown they won’t give up their top-four spot without a fight by repelling the Tigers to score a morale-boosting 34-14 victory at Go Media Stadium.
After losing Luke Metcalf and Mitch Barnett to season-ending knee injuries and Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, ther grip on fourth spot was starting to look shaky as they lost two on the trot.
But after licking their wounds during their bye week, the Warriors overcame a committed Wests outfit to improve to an 11-5 record and keep the chasing pack of Brisbane and Penrith at bay.
However they may have another big name in their crowded casualty ward with Rocco Berry only lasting 33 minutes before succumbing to a shoulder injury.
The Kiwi international, who has had a wretched run with injury this season, played no further part in the match after coming off late in the first half with veteran utility Te Maire Martin taking over at centre.
Wests got the jump on the Warriors to open the scoring via winger Jeral Skelton inside the first two minutes but Berry and Chanel Harris-Tavita responded.
Adam Doueihi and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak traded tries before the Warriors took a 16-8 lead into the break.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck finished off a left-side raid in the 50th minute to give the home team a 14-point buffer and despite Doueihi adding a solo try midway through the second half, the Warriors kept the Tigers at arm’s length.
Harris-Tavita ensured the patched-up Warriors would pick up the two competition points seven minutes from the final siren when he collected the crumbs after the Tigers botched a bomb defusal.
Leka Halasima backed up a Taine Tuaupiki long-range break to blow out the final margin by another six points.
Taine Tuaupiki had done well to remain on the field after Skelton blindsided him with a thunderous tackle which rattled his ribcage moments earlier.
