In recent times, Penrith have been no stranger to goodbyes. It is a part of life if you’re driving excessive for so long as Penrith have.
This 12 months it is James Fisher-Harris and Jarome Luai, final 12 months it was Stephen Crichton and Spencer Leniu, earlier than that it was Viliame Kikau and Api Koroisau as a result of the wage cap is the one factor the Panthers cannot beat.
However this season’s farewell is larger than that, it is to Penrith Stadium itself, the one dwelling the membership has ever identified since they entered the league in 1967.
Late on Friday evening, properly after full-time within the qualifying last between the Panthers and the Roosters, the lights will flip off for the final time and the bottom will formally develop into “the previous Panthers stadium”.
Subsequent 12 months the Panthers will play in Las Vegas and Mudgee and Bathurst and Parramatta as they wait for his or her new life to start.
The $300-million redevelopment of the bottom, which is scheduled to be accomplished in time for the 2026 season, marks a giant change for Penrith however some issues will stay the identical.
After the membership consulted with the followers on the design of the brand new stadium, the hills at both finish of the bottom shall be retained.
The names of 4 membership legends – Craig Gower, Greg Alexander, Royce Simmons and Graham Moran – are presently atop the jap grandstand and the tribute to them will dwell on in some kind.
For essentially the most half, it’ll mark the start of a complete new world for the membership and the neighborhood. Nonetheless, the soul of the previous place will dwell on. A stadium is simply concrete and plastic seats round a patch of grass, however a house is within the individuals who name it that and the recollections they share collectively
All the present Panthers have loads of the latter as a result of this stadium is for Penrith as a lot because it’s for the Panthers.
Penrith crowds have ballooned in recent times on the again of the membership’s success. (Getty Pictures: Matt Blyth )
The native juniors, like Izack Tago, have been enjoying there since they have been children – the star centre was simply 13 when he first hit the turf for St Marys in a junior grand last.
“It is dwelling. It is a large area for all of us rising up, you’d work in direction of all of it 12 months simply to get the possibility to play there, and when you get to the Panthers, it is the place you forge your profession,” Tago stated.
“That they had a listing there of the highest 30 gamers in Panthers historical past with an asterisk subsequent to all the blokes who have been native juniors.
“That was at all times particular, I would practice there and suppose possibly I could possibly be on that record someday.”
Moses Leota made that very same journey, going from sitting on the hill together with his mates to standing in entrance of it, ready to thunder into the ready defence.
“We received these playing cards from the membership that used to get us into video games, you’d go in and muck round on the hill with the boys, we might watch the sport, however solely a bit,” Leota stated.
“When it is packed out with the followers, once they’re egging you on and screaming your title, these are the little issues you’ll be able to always remember.
“Once I’m on the fence about to carry a sit back and I can hear them, it is loopy, it is nerve-wracking, the power, there’s nothing prefer it.”
Different Panthers have come from far and vast to develop into heroes. Throughout Fisher-Harris’s official ship off final week, the stadium turned a bit of piece of Kohukohu, the tiny village in New Zealand the departing prop hails from.
For the quite a few Panthers who’ve come over the mountains from the central west, the stadium was the primary style of life in large time footy.
Liam Martin’s first time enjoying there after developing from Temora was an SG Ball season opener again in 2015. The Panthers misplaced to the Raiders and there was hardly a soul there.
“But it surely was unimaginable,” Martin stated.
“I will always remember operating on the market, it felt like a grand last to me. There wasn’t a lot of a crowd, however that did not matter.”
Like all dwelling, it is the little issues that made the bottom, the tiny touches you solely see if you happen to’ve been there a thousand instances.
For Martin, it is the grass. He loves it, says it is the very best floor within the league, bar none, regardless of the heavy foot site visitors it cops each winter.
“You possibly can see the pleasure the greenkeepers have in it. I could be biased however I feel it is the very best within the comp,” Martin stated.
“There’s been days the place there’s 4 or 5 video games on it however come first grade it is as schmick as ever.”
For a fan, it could be realizing exactly the place to show off Woodriff Avenue to get a straightforward park, or having an actual spot on the household hill the place the view is finest, or the second when AC/DC’s Hells Bells begins ringing out because the gamers take the sector.
Penrith enjoying AC/DC’s Hells Bells earlier than a recreation has develop into a treasured ritual. (Getty Pictures: Jason McCawley )
Liam Henry, one of many membership’s roughneck younger forwards, has a particular love for that final one.
“Once I first got here down from Blayney I could not imagine how large the place was, I nonetheless pinch myself each time I run out,” Henry stated.
“Whenever you run out and the tune performs it appears like you are able to do something.”
Henry is a part of a brand new era of Panthers who know the membership as a dominant, premiership-winning pressure.
Their run of three-straight premierships and 4 consecutive grand finals has been happening lengthy sufficient that anyone like Casey McLean, the membership’s spectacular younger centre, was barely out of main college when all of it received began in 2020.
Now the Panthers and their followers have outgrown the previous household dwelling.
Their lowest dwelling crowd this 12 months was simply over 12,000 towards the Dragons on a chilly, moist, Origin-affected evening in July. In 2019, the final 12 months earlier than this run started, that was roughly the scale of every dwelling crowd.
Earlier than that, there have been loads of years the place filling the stadium a few times a season was thought-about a very good consequence.
The diehards at all times confirmed up and it could refill if Penrith snagged a finals recreation there, however some days it will need to have appeared like the one firm was the Panther roar they play over the loudspeakers after a very good play by the house group.
Now it is full to bursting each week and has develop into a howling fortress the place opposition groups journey to be run via the Panthers buzz-saw, a black gap the place opposition ideas of victory go to die.
It is also the place the place Penrith have introduced again their premiership trophies to have fun after every of their grand last wins, turning the place right into a temple of victory the place the gamers and followers bask within the biggest profitable run fashionable rugby league has ever identified.
The bottom announcer nonetheless performs the Panthers roar throughout video games. More often than not it is exhausting to listen to over the ravenous crowd, who’ve but to tire of victory, and in the event that they have not after 5 seasons, it is possible they by no means will, however you’ll be able to nonetheless hear it.
It will probably nonetheless gee the gamers up, however they’re fairly used to listening to it by now.
“It did after I first began, however when you’re round for a when you hear it rather a lot,” Martin stated.
“You hear it extra on the bench, it could possibly nonetheless get you hyped then.”
It stays to be seen if the roar makes it to the brand new stadium. A part of going into the longer term is leaving items of the previous behind and Penrith have created a brand new world for themselves with their success in recent times.
It is made them the best group of the trendy period and firmly established them as one of many NRL’s blue-bloods after greater than half a century of being a poorer cousin who often struck it large.
The gamers and coaches who made it so, even those who by no means put on the black jersey there as soon as it is accomplished, will dwell within the partitions of the brand new stadium without end. It will be the home the dynasty constructed and to dwell as a Panther shall be to dwell the historical past of Penrith.
However even when it is constructed on the foundations of the previous, it’ll take a few years for it to cease being the brand new place, till contemporary recollections are created to make it a house.
It is going to be a distinct factor, as a result of what occurred on the previous Penrith Park couldn’t have occurred anyplace else, and whereas it couldn’t final without end, it was Penrith’s for so long as it did.
