KIERSTEN DUKE: Why I’m cheering for Penrith Panthers to beat Melbourne Storm in NRL grand final

The NRL is becoming boring and predictable. At least that’s what one fan declared on social media in the lead-up to Sunday’s Melbourne-Penrith grand final. With the same two teams sharing premierships over the last five years, does the man with a can of VB as his profile photo have a point?

Melbourne Storm lost a stack of admirers during their grand final wins in 2007 and 2009 due to going over the salary cap which resulted in their titles being taken from them. If this wasn’t painful and not to mention embarrassing enough for the team, they then felt the full wrath of the fans from the teams they unfairly beat.

In particular Parramatta fans, who hadn’t won a premiership since the ’80s. I can’t fathom the anger I would’ve felt seeing my team lose a premiership, only to find out they were beaten by cheats.

I’d say the same for Manly fans, but I have one friend who is convinced that Storm will win because NSW won Origin and therefore Penrith will be sacrificed for that. However, minus my conspiracy theorist friend, I imagine all Parramatta and Manly fans will be cheering for a Panthers’ four-peat.

What an incredible achievement that would be. Four grand final victories on the bounce. Penrith are just the fourth club to reach five consecutive grand finals. The most recent team to do that prior was South Sydney in 1967-1971.

You’d assume all neutral fans based in Sydney would be cheering the side closer to home to win. Seems logical. And that’s the logic which was applied to State Of Origin back when Greg Inglis, Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater and Cameron Smith all played for Storm and Queensland. Melbourne fans cheered the Maroon fellas home so maybe it would feel morally wrong to cheer Melbourne if you’re based in Sydney.

On the other hand, at least if Melbourne won you wouldn’t have to cop seeing their endless celebrations in the street considering the majority of their fans will be quickly travelling south to their home State.

Which is the lesser of two evils?

I will be sticking with the Sydney team even though they beat my beloved bunnies back in 2021. I think it would be cool to see Nathan Cleary unable to lift his hand because of the number of rings on it.

In an odd way I also think it would be nice to cheer them on as a metaphorical “thanks”.

Purely for all the unreal players they’ve let go to other teams due to them being too talented to fit under the salary cap. Maybe take note, Melbourne.

If it wasn’t for the time and investment the Panthers put into the development of their juniors, we wouldn’t be blessed with such talent like Stephen Crichton, Spencer Leniu, Terrell May or even Viliame Kikau who played for the Panthers NSW Cup team and was brought through into first grade.

It’s quite an extensive, and impressive, list of players Penrith have developed over the years and made them competitive at first grade level before releasing them to play for other teams.

For this I think it’s only right that I thank them by screaming so hard I lose my voice on Sunday night.