They meet former assistant coach Trent Barrett’s Canterbury side next Saturday before hosting Melbourne on what will be a blockbuster round-three Thursday-night clash at Panthers Stadium.
Coach Ivan Cleary will be happy his side put themselves in the position to score so many points. He knows the poor completion rate, however, will be punished by better teams. All players deserve to be cut some slack in the opening rounds as they build up their fitness. The best news for Penrith was there were no injuries.
James Fisher-Harris ran for nearly 200m and almost had a try, while Cleary came up with a 40/20 courtesy of a torpedo bomb, and his couple of speedy runs early in the second half led to a couple of tries.
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Even bunker review official Alan Shortall was giving Penrith some love when he upheld a captain’s challenge when Api Koroisau was even convinced he had knocked the ball on.
Had the Cowboys not been so poor with their own handling during the few times they did have possession, it could have been a very different result.
Questions were being asked about why new Cowboys coach Todd Payten kept Jason Taumalolo off the field for half an hour during the middle of the game, especially with some of the club’s big men starting to tire.
Taumalolo had only made three runs and 10 tackles when given a decent half-hour spell on the sidelines. The Cowboys destroyer has averaged around an hour of game time the past four seasons.
