Moylan move could dent Panthers revival

The surprising suggestion that Penrith skipper Matt Moylan could be on the way out of the Panthers organisation has the potential to leave the club’s revival with tainted and irreversible damage.

Make no mistake, Matt Moylan is the pin-up boy of the Penrith Panthers. 

He’s talented, has football nous and is a local prodigy. He plays a key position on the field, and is marketable, sleek and has the model looks off it.

PRODIGAL: Matt Moylan. 

If you rewind to Gus Gould’s arrival back at the Nepean in 2011, you’ll remember the gutting and broomstick he put through the club’s roster. You’ll remember the overhaul of the business, the bold statements about being the country’s most recognisable sports brand, and the now infamous five-year plan.

While you might question many of Gus’ claims and hang the plans out to dry, it is undeniable that the influence of Gould has almost single-handedly turned a floundering franchise into an NRL powerhouse.

Just this week, the club put out a statement detailing how every one of their sides had made the finals for only the fourth time in the club’s 50-plus year history. And in a first, they have achieved for a second consecutive year.  

Gould’s revolution was kick-started in 2012 when he brought in Ivan Cleary and began the turnaround.

Almost parallel to the new era was the emergence of Baulkham Hills-born Matt Moylan. 

A local junior who was first off what would turn into a conveyer-belt of NRL players produced from the local Penrith district.

Bryce Cartwright and Matt Moylan have been the leading figures in Penrith's impressive junior-to-NRL transmission rate. 

At fullback, Moylan played in arguably the most prodigious position on the field outside of the traditional owner of rugby league sides, the halfback.  

His playing talents quickly shone through; he began to find his feet in the media appearing on The Footy Show as a regular; and his quick-wit, humour and good looks would have had marketing guru’s rubbing their hands together.

He fitted in perfectly to the commercial and operational redesign of the Panthers at-large. So much so, in 2016 he was handed the club’s captaincy.

It was a valiant decision, and with a squad so young it had the potential to work.

Without drawing a comparison too wild, Moylan has a tinge of former Liverpool footballer Steven Gerrard about him. And so does his situation.

Local junior, poster boy, all the talent in the world, the ability to influence others through his own actions.

POSTER BOY: Moylan appears to have it all. 

But what he hasn’t fully captured yet is the persistence of effort, a resilience. 

In the age of modern-day footballers, it’s probably no surprise. But will this be the career-defining learning curve for Moylan, or the signal of the end of his time at Penrith?

In 2015, Gus Gould made an eerily similar and surprising decision to sack then Panthers coach Ivan Cleary and bring in Anthony Griffin.  

At the time it was odd and didn’t really make sense.

While the merits of that decision are a debate for another article, Moylan was still able to continue his rise under new coach Griffin.

He made the New South Wales side, Australian squad and was instrumental in the club’s run into the finals last season.

All while wearing the captain’s metaphorical armband. So it’s hard to work out wear it’s all gone wrong.

MIXED FORM: Penrith's form this year has been indifferent, but they've made the finals. 

Indeed, maybe both parties have reasons for wanting a change.

It Moylan is unhappy and dismayed with his current predicament, maybe a move would be best the best thing for him. A shift away from the prodigal son paradigm.

Maybe the Panthers have realised they don’t have the full deck of cards required to achieve their goal of winning another premiership and see the departure of Moylan as a way of securing what or who they need.

Like the loss of Cleary, perhaps to get where you want to go, you don’t always arrive with those who you thought you would.

But there would be a real sense of disenchantment if Matt Moylan wasn’t involved in completing Penrith’s revival.

He’s been at the front of it, at the back of it, and in the thick of it.

Chronologically, in a positional sense, and in terms of the operation respectively. 

Cartwright Set To Stay At Six

Bryce Cartwright’s occupation of the Panthers’ number-six jersey will be extended after Penrith Coach Anthony Griffin rebuffed conjecture of the 21-year-old’s suitability to the role.

Bryce Cartwright has played the last five games at five-eighth. 

Cartwright had a mixed afternoon in Penrith’s 22-18 win over Parramatta at Pepper Stadium yesterday, making a number of errors in the first-half before scoring a try and putting in a valiant display to conclude the game. 

Since debuting in 2014, Cartwright has played in the back-row and in the lock position for the majority of his 46 NRL appearances. But for the past five rounds, Cartwright has been handed the number-six by Griffin in an effort to stimulate Penrith’s attack.  

His suitability to the role has been questioned by many in the game – from fans to pundits – and the promising Panthers’ junior has looked far from fluent in the more hands-on role. 

Speaking on Triple M’s The Verdict after yesterday’s game, former Penrith Grand-Final winner Ryan Girdler voiced one of the stronger opinions about the situation. 

“I just don’t think he’s a six,” Girdler said. 

“I think he’s playing out of position, he gets isolated defensively, again today he got carved up out wide.  

“There were two or three times there that Gutherson made him look silly.”

Girdler suggested Cartwright was the victim of his own strengths’ as he tried to play his natural back-row running game from the unaccustomed position of five-eighth.

“When you take away the role for Bryce to charge at the line as a back-rower and offload through the line, or after he’s made contact, then he feels like he’s a five-eight and he needs to pass before the line,” Girdler said. 

“I think you take a really good aspect of his game away which is punching into the line with his size and then using his ability with the ball after that.”

While Girdler was forthright in his opinion, co-host Gorden Tallis believed it was the inexperience of the Panthers’ playmakers as a whole, rather than Cartwright that need to improve their game.

“They’ve got to learn the time and space. The seven, six, and one have got to learn what does my team need me to do now,” Tallis said. 

“They’re brilliant; they can put on tries – but Cartwright, just because you’ve got the skill, doesn’t mean you have to use it every time.” 

With Jamie Soward moving to the London Broncos to prolong his own career and allow for the emergence of others, Penrith are stuck in a tricky situation when it comes to key positions. While Peter Wallace looks to have cemented his spot at hooker and Nathan Cleary has set-up shop at halfback, the five-eighth and fullback positions remain a talking point. 

Utility Tyrone Peachey has been forced to shift to centres with long-term injuries to Peta Hiku and Dean Whare, while Matt Moylan’s highly anticipated move to five-eighth came at the unlikely setting of representative level, and freshly-signed Super League Man of Steel winner Zac Hardaker spent the entire 80 minutes yesterday warming the bench. 

Griffin is surely finding it difficult to position his array of stars in their best and most natural positions. 

But the former Broncos’ mentor spoke glowingly of Cartwright’s performances in the halves, stipulating that the New South Wales development player will be set to stay there for the near-future. 

“I thought he did a good job tonight,” Griffin said.

“He scored a try, I thought he had a good balance of running the ball when he needed to, I haven’t got a problem with him.

“The beauty about Bryce Cartwright is he can play a lot of positions; you put him in the front row and he’d do a job for you.

“At the moment with the balance of our team, he’s doing a good job for us.”

Griffin suggested that it is more about the players around Bryce getting an education to how he operates in the position, while also making reference to the side as a whole needing to roll their sleeves up. 

With Cartwright’s stay looking more and more likely that it will be for the rest of the year, unless Te Maire Martin can return to the side from injury, Penrith’s edge players will need to develop a cohesiveness with Cartwright in order to become an effective and consistent threat.