Think of all the plays the Panthers have produced over the last four years, and then there is this: a second-rower leaping into the night sky and burgling a winger 11cm taller than him, a prop running 35 metres downfield to collect the next pass and a left centre acrobatically diving over to score … on the right wing.
But by now, should we even be surprised? Have we not long passed the time when the extraordinary just becomes ordinary for this team?
For years, the beauty of this black (and now pink) dynasty is its ruthless simplicity, and yet when it was all on the line, a cast of unusual suspects did things they shouldn’t really be doing to finally suck the tension out of a gripping grand final.
Paul Alamoti’s second-half try pushed the Panthers to an eight-point lead against Melbourne on Sunday night, a buffer they never really looked like surrendering. Only minutes earlier, he’d been deployed as an emergency winger to cover for the injured Brian To’o.
Here’s how Penrith pulled off a miracle play that put the seal on their fourth straight title.
Cleary sinks the boot in … again
Perhaps the only thing we should have expected from the try was the kick that came from Nathan Cleary.
Paul Alamoti celebrates the Panthers’ grand final win.Credit: Getty Images
At almost the exact minute the Panthers launched last year’s extraordinary grand final comeback against the Broncos, they twisted the knife into the team which delayed what nobody could have predicted would be a rugby league revolution.
Like last year, it started with Cleary.
His aerial kick was nothing we didn’t forecast: done without pressure, hovering above the exact blade of grass he would have wanted, and with just enough hang time for his teammates to pursue it.
What we didn’t expect was who would catch it, and how.
‘Bugger it’: How a small back-rower robbed Melbourne’s tall timber
For all the pre-game bluster about Melbourne’s tall timber Xavier Coates (194cm) and Will Warbrick (193cm) exposing Penrith’s pocket rockets To’o (182cm) and Sunia Turuva (181cm) on the wings, the Storm could have scarcely believed the pivotal aerial battle would go against them.
“We’ve had short wingers for five years,” Penrith coach Ivan Cleary said. “We started with Josh Mansour and Bizza [To’o] and we just haven’t been able to find anyone taller than them. No one except the Storm in our previous games this year has got above us.”
Martin had spent most of the night chasing Nathan Cleary’s high balls and hammering Coates after he caught them. It was the same tactic he used in State of Origin. The Clive Churchill Medal winner received painkilling injections before the game as he struggled with an AC joint injury in his shoulder and a rib cartilage problem.
“I was just thinking, ‘compete’,” he said of the clash with Coates. “I could get myself in position, and then it was deciding whether I could go for it. Then I thought, ‘bugger it’. It was a bit of a grasp. I came away with it – and I don’t know how.”
Said Ivan Cleary: “Marto is actually good in the air. He competes very hard and because he runs so hard, he’s good in the collision.”
Play it again, Moses
To those in the Panthers squad, it was little coincidence prop Moses Leota was the man to back up Cleary to score the try which started Penrith’s miracle revival last year. This year, as the clock crept towards the same time in the game, he was there again.
Leota had been back on the field for 10 minutes in his second stint when he quickened in pursuit of Cleary’s kick.
His main aim was to be there as a pillar in defence. In the process, he ran past Storm players Josh King, Shawn Blore and crucially Cameron Munster, and when Martin came down with the ball, he was there to receive the pass.
What fans don’t see is at the end of each NRL training session players are allowed to do “extras”, or an addition to the normal session of their own choosing. They might harness a skill they want to work on, or do some more fitness.
Leota and fellow enforcer James Fisher-Harris will endlessly pass the ball to each other during extras. After Martin dumped the ball back to him, Leota threw a pass in a pressure situation when he’d rarely be asked to.
Penrith’s Liam Martin was stellar on grand final night.Credit: Getty Images
“I was just focusing on getting down there and doing my job for the team,” Leota said. “We do a lot of work at training and you just don’t know when the moment is going to come.
“The moment came tonight.”
Left to right in the nick of time
During the finals last year, Alamoti was clubless, without a contract and fearing he might not have much of an NRL future. Then the Panthers came knocking after he was released by the Bulldogs, signing for less than half of what he was earning at Canterbury.
Twelve months later, the carnivore diet convert scored the biggest try of his career only three minutes after shifting from left centre to right wing to cover for the injured To’o (knee).
He not only scored, but touched down with one of those spectacular leaps through the air the modern day wingers have perfected, just beating the desperate attempts from Coates and Ryan Papenhuyzen to stop him.
“He’s played a few games on the wing this year,” Cleary said. “[But] he hasn’t played there for a while actually. He hasn’t done any reps this week. I was thinking about that today. I thought, ‘s—, probably [should have done some]’. I was thinking of the worst thing that could happen.”
Only the best thing happened. And it came from a bunch of unusual suspects doing things they really shouldn’t.
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