At the ground it looked like Melbourne (was it Grant rushing out?) were offside on the disallowed field goal - i guess they weren’t?
I thought Bellamy playing Munster, Wishart and Pizet for 80 minutes was quite a curveball - all three can kick on the last and also manage the passing game. That threw a lot at us, which we handled well mostly. But then add Grant - who was his usual push the envelope self and turned the game with a few plays.
We did need to play better in the second half.
I think we played well enough to win, not perfect by any means, but we didn’t get the W despite kicking the winning FG with 3 minutes left. Reminded me of the BS penalty that handed the game to the $torm late last year.
We played poorly enough to end up loosing in golden point. Too many errors in the end.
Move on to next week. 
Our first half defense was brutal, we need to keep that going in the 2nd half but seemed to get lost in their momentum.
We beat ourselves in that game. Too many mistakes, like Edwards’ dropped balls in tackles, and To’o’s missed tackle. Plus, their 1st try came just after Smith gave away a 5th tackle penalty.
Melbourne’s first try seemed OK in slow motion replays. He regathered just in time.
We need to devise a better system of defusing opposition kicks to To’o’s wing. For their 2nd try our blokes seemed too gassed to look for the possible tap back. Of course, if we cut down on errors, the opposition can only kick long, and that obviates the problem.
Talagi and McLean have really come on well over the past few months, but McLean seemed to be left grabbing at thin air before their 2nd try, and Talagi’s later pass that was intercepted was a shocker. Both mistakes led to tries.
The disallowed winning field goal should have Penrith management confronting the MRC for a “please explain”. We were robbed, plain and simple. Cleary steps right for the kick, but Grant runs towards Cleary’s left (straight for where Leota was standing, more or less motionless). I hark back to my post from a few days ago, viz “Two words should strike dread into the hearts of Penrith and supporters. Not Craig Bellamy. Not Cameron Munster. Ashley Klein. Be afraid. Be very afraid.” I rest my case. And I presume that Harry Grant grew up on a dairy farm.
Did one of our blokes get a hand in the eye? Isn’t that a high shot (given that the eyeballs tend to be above the shoulder)? No problem, apparently.
Plenty of good Penrith players, and I think that we were the better team for much of the game.But they took their chances, with 2 long range tries, and 2 from short bombs towards To’o.
Did anyone notice Grant having a long talk with Klein at the end of the first half. Just setting up the 2nd half I suppose. Probably well coached by Cameron Smith.
Finally, thanks Ch 9 for giving us 2 ex-Melbourne players in the commentary team. Their glee was a bit too obvious; it sticks in my throat. Reminds me of a game against Brisbane in Brisbane some years back, when three of the commentary team were ex-Brisbane. I reckon that it took about 10 minutes before we worked out who Brisbane were playing.
The NRL has backed Ashley Klein’s call to penalise Penrith for blocking.
Opens up a fairly large container of worms for the finals, imho.
Penalty may be NRL payback for the trainer incident. I can guarantee that if it had been the other way around, there is no way that Panthers would have got that penalty
The problem with that ruling is that is going to be hard for any team to kick a FG, as that interpretation puts an undefined area of the field in which no-one on the attacking team can stand.
Penrith were far to good for Melbourne in setting up for the FG, and Grant knew he was not going to get to Cleary in time & elected to run at Moses & take a dive for a penalty. Just find someone & run into them will be the plan.
Anyway, next time we need to put the game away before a FG is required.
My thoughts exactly.
Difficult for most teams, but not all. I am sure that for teams like storm, broncos, roosters, the interpretation will be different.
If you read the Zero tackle nuffy, Moses should have got out of Grant’s way, this comment straight after he said Grant made good use of “finding contact”. Sounds a bit hypocritical to me !!
The discussions that I have read seems to completely ignore the line that Grant should have run, viz towards the ball; and that is off to the right of Cleary’s (because you don’t ‘toe-poke’ drop kicks). His run towards Leota seems to indicate that he knew he would never reach the ball.
Should have penalised Grant for striking Moses.
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