Last year, it was all about climbing and then conquering Mt Everest. The Panthers did just that. Then came a new challenge — defending the title.
Before Sunday, the Roosters were the only team in the NRL era to have done it and it would take all of Ivan Cleary’s skills as the master motivator for the Panthers to join them.
But he had an idea. This season, it was about ‘the mission’. Although no one outside of Penrith’s inner circle really knew exactly what that mission was.
Inside the sheds on Sunday night that all changed as the Panthers lifted the lid to foxsports.com.au on the mid-season camp and movie night spurring their latest title charge.
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“We had the Everest theme last year, obviously climbing Everest and trying to conquer the peak that is the championship,” second-rower J’Maine Hopgood said.
“We were on a camp this year and the coaching staff, we all went to the cinema and watched Top Gun [Maverick] and just took a few things about how they work as a team and to complete a big mission, which is obviously trying to win the comp.
“We drew a bit of inspiration from that and obviously it keeps driving you to the main goal.”
Plastered along one of the walls in the Panthers sheds on Sunday were words inspired by the film: ‘One last dog fight’ in bold along with ‘Always the hunters’, ‘Always connected’, ‘Fast moving’, ‘Brutally Suffocating’ and ‘Hard working’.
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“It’s special to our group,” front rower Scott Sorensen said.
“I don’t want to give away too much because it’s very unique and means a lot to us individually and as a team.”
Panthers coach Ivan Cleary was similarly tight-lipped, telling foxsports.com.au “it’s just a little bit of a theme, similar to last year but a different tangent”.
Centre Izack Tago though was willing to offer a few more details on how the team used the film and central theme of a ‘dog fight’ to set out a “clear vision” for their title defence.
“It was different,” Tago said.
“I think the good thing about the group is we are open-minded. The creativity of the staff to just engage us as a crew and a team to give us that image of bringing it to a dogfight. It’s sort of been a theme since we came out of mid-year camp and we just took it into every game and never took a backwards step.
“When something like that happens the boys have a clear vision inside and that’s taking out the premiership. It’s just easy for us to all relate to it.”
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Soni Luke said he had “never personally done anything like that”, revealing how coach Cleary would draw on the film each week before games to motivate the group.
“The boys obviously had the Everest theme last year in the finals,” he said.
“I didn’t know what to expect this year and then came the Top Gun stuff and that was the theme. It was pretty awesome.
“We got a lot of good things out of it and it was really enjoyable and obviously worked as well. He [Ivan Cleary] talked about the dogfight in the movie and we kind of made that relatable to our style of footy. Just little things like that. It’s just cool relating to something and having a little theme.
“I’ve never personally done anything like that but I really enjoyed it. It just kept the finals flowing and it was like a new chapter for us going into the finals. Almost every week there was something brought up about it, going back to the movie.
“We had a little mid-year camp where we went and watched the movie and drew inspiration from a couple of the scenes. We reflected on it quite often in the back-end of the year. I didn’t know how they were going to top last year, just hearing the stories and stuff, but as long as everyone buys in I think they’re pretty safe with whatever they do.”
Winger Taylan May added: “We just followed Top Gun 2 and how it’s a dog fight and just replicated what their story was and how our team was going to work like that”.
It certainly worked, with the Panthers scrapping their way to a second-straight premiership on the back of the best defensive record in the competition.
Sorensen said the culture at Penrith is “unique” and like nothing he has ever been a part of and that word “culture” was one centre Tago kept coming back to when asked how the club has sustained its success.
“I think it’s definitely culture,” Tago said.
“You can see the things we do in the top grade filters through to the younger grades. That’s a product of what happened on the weekend, four grades all taking it out. I put it down to culture for sure.”
“I think it’s just alignment with everyone from management to players,” added coach Cleary.
“We’re also woven together by our common thread of being proud to be part of our Panthers community.”
