Uh oh, the Pink Panthers are back

For fifteen minutes it seemed like we were going to get the game we all wanted. Sydney Roosters vs Penrith Panthers. Two of Australia’s glamour clubs of the 21st Century. Penrith with four of the last five titles. The Roosters with two out of the three prior to Penrith’s dynasty.

While the Roosters' returns have been scant since going back to back — they are yet to return to a Grand Final — their squad remains fuelled by pure star power. Of their starting thirteen that faced Penrith, eleven have played representative rugby league at either State of Origin or international level. And in the opening exchanges, you could tell.

Captain James Tedesco may now be 33 years old but he remains the premier full-back of his generation. Even as his side finished 8th last season, he won the Dally M award as the league’s best player. And once again he was everywhere you looked; finding space where there was none to break deep from his own half; mowing down his opposite number Dylan Edwards with a try-saving tackle; skirting across Penrith’s defensive line and providing the final pass as Robert Toia danced around Casey McLean to score the opening try; almost repeating the same trick only for Toia to have the ball dislodged with the line at his mercy.

That, however, was as good as it got for the Roosters. Full-time: Sydney Roosters 4 Penrith Panthers 40. Ouch. And oh no. The boys in pink are well and truly back — with a vengeance.

For the first time in four years, Penrith looked like human beings last season. Twelve games into 2025, they were dead last in the table. While they rallied to finish 7th and come within one game of another Grand Final, their run of unprecedented glory seemed to have finally taken its toll. Too many star players had left due to the constraints of the salary cap. Their formula for success, often derided as robotic — it has to be described as robotic because doing the right thing over and over and over again should not be humanly possible — finally broke down and was eclipsed by the blinding razzmatazz of Reece Walsh and one of the greatest individual play-off runs in history.

But the NRL has returned and so have the Panthers, plugged seamlessly back into the mainframe. Victory against the Roosters made it three wins from their opening three games, having also comfortably beaten last season’s champions Brisbane Broncos and a Cronulla Sharks side that has fallen one game short of the Grand Final in each of the last two years.

Isaah Yeo remains the beating heart of the forward pack and Nathan Cleary was back playing in a dinner jacket, serving up no-look passes, the full repertoire of inventive kicks and a sprinkling of probing runs. But the headlines were stolen by the unheralded winger Tom Jenkins, who is exactly the type of character upon which the dynasty was built.

Released by Penrith three years ago, Jenkins returned to the Panthers in 2025 on a train and trial deal with no guarantees of a long-term future. He forced his way into the team and scored thirteen tries in 21 games last season only to be dropped for the play-offs. Like the rest of his team, he has come back with a bang. Against the Roosters, he scored four, taking his tally to eight in the opening three games of the campaign, the last of which was an almost length of the field burst in which he stuttered and stumbled but couldn’t be stopped.

Yet the true highlight of the game was produced on the other side of the field through the indomitable Brian To’o.

To’o is one of rugby league’s good guys. He’s fun, brilliant, and continues to defy the laws of physics by being almost impossible to tackle despite his short stature. "I love running into big players,” he told ABC in 2022. “I represent all the little guys —  around 20s I stopped using my sidestep and decided to try and punch through, and it worked so I just kept doing it."

To’o’s physical prowess was best encapsulated by his breakaway try in the 2022 Grand Final when, after catching a ball on his own twenty and streaking upfield, he shunted Souths’ Cody Walker and into his own teammate, skittling them both.

But sometimes you need to pick your battles. Against the Roosters, he once again surprised us all by opting for an altogether different approach. With the scores still tied at 4-4, To’o caught the ball at a standstill on the last tackle with nowhere to go. Looking up, he kicked through three players, regathered, then kicked around another two to score with the sheer delight of a magician tricking a bunch of kids at a birthday party. Ta-da!

The game had been broken and so had the Sydney Roosters. In the space of eleven minutes they went from leading by four to trailing by eighteen.

And as if I couldn't have enjoyed it any more, I realised that finally, at long last, rugby league had its answer to Ross McCormack scoring for Leeds United against Sheffield Wednesday in 2013. Presumably that is what To’o intended all along. In fact, I have no doubt — because there is nothing this Penrith team can’t do. ⬧