Cleary’s big call, Canterbury’s season and professional fouls: NRL Finals talking points, Bulldogs vs Panthers

The Penrith Panthers are through to yet another preliminary final after dismantling the Canterbury Bulldogs on Sunday afternoon at Homebush.

Here are our talking points from the game.

What is a professional foul?
The goal posts on what constitutes a professional foul seem to have moved considerably during the final weeks of the season.

It has been a trend in recent weeks that things which are not penalty tries are now also autmatically viewed as not professional fouls. There used to be a very clear distinction between the two, but those lines now seem to have blurred.

In the opening minutes of Sunday afternoon's encounter, Viliame Kikau charged down a Nathan Cleary kick and was leading the race for an awkwardly bouncing ball before being impeded by Dylan Edwards.

Penrith should have lost their fullback to the sin bin.

It's as simple as that. If it's a penalty in that situation, the only reason it can be so is because it's a professional foul.

But now we are having chatter from referees about the direction of the ball, and whether other players were in the line of it.

That is not the way professional fouls used to be used, but we have seen it a number of times in recent weeks.

What do we really make of the Bulldogs' season?
When the Bulldogs were nine and two, they seemed to be the hand down premiership favourites. Their draw to start the year was favourable compared to what they finished with, but still, there was no reason to doubt what the blue and white were churning out on a weekly basis.

But then they signed Lachlan Galvin.

I've written about it ad nauseum, but no one has ever magically improved by sitting at the top of the table and then making wholesale changes to your spine.

Reed Mahoney and Toby Sexton were out, Bailey Hayward, who had been doing a good job at lock, was playing at hooker, and the balance was upset.

The Bulldogs did some good things on the run home at stages, but it wasn't consistent. Injuries meant Toby Sexton and Reed Mahoney came back into the starting side for the semi-final against Penrith, but to suggest they were ever going to be at the top of their respective games was laughable.

You can't spend that much time out of first-gade, and then be recalled in a sudden death clash against the buzzsaw that is Penrith with expectations of leading the team to victory.

It's as simple as that.

Decisions in the middle of the campaign derailed the Bulldogs.

They'll be better for the run, but Lachlan Galvin isn't a halfback, Bailey Hayward isn't an 80-minute dummy half, and Cameron Ciraldo has some enormous questions to answer for 2026.

Nathan Cleary's kicking game leads the way... Again
Last weekend against the New Zealand Warriors, Penrith halfback Nathan Cleary kicked the opposition to death.

It wasn't quite to that level on Sunday, but it wasn't far away. In wet weather, his short kicking game told the tale of the tape.

On Sunday, it was his long kicking game. A superb second half 40/20 was the highlight, but there were plenty. Every kick, long or short, found its mark.

He was involved in everything for the Panthers, even away from the kicking game, and deserves his spot among the best leaders in the game.

He will need to take it to another level next weekend as he runs into Adam Reynolds, but based on the last fortnight, it's hard to argue he won't be up for it.

The Bulldogs must fix their defence for 2026
Maybe the most alarming trend for the Bulldogs on the run home has been the way their defence has opened up at times.

The last three weeks in particular, culminating with 36 first half points conceded against Penrith, shows where they are at.

They have had plenty of missed tackles all year and managed to recover, but to miss more than 60 last week, and then 42 in the first half on Sunday, shows where they are at.

Stephen Crichton's absence was of course, enormous, and is noted at both ends of the park, but he on his own wouldn't have fixed what amounted to an absolute mess.

The tactic from Canterbury is very clear up in your face and then scramble to shut down the missed tackles, but that only works for so long, against so many teams.

It doesn't work in September against the big dogs, and they'll need to find a way to balance their strategy next year if they are going to get back to this point, or go further.

Paul Alamoti's recall was Ivan Cleary's best call
The Panthers came into 2025 expecting Paul Alamoti to be in their best 17 on a consistent basis. That really was a universally agreed upon concept.

But then, Thomas Jenkins, who rejoined the men from the foot of the mountains through their Ron Massey Cup team at St Mary's to start the year, suddenly was thrust into first-grade.

Alamoti was the player exepnsed back to reserve grade, and that's the way it stayed for much of the year.

The former Bulldog got his opportunity during the mass resting of Round 26 though and hasn't missed a beat since, claiming the spot back from Jenkins and doing a tremendous job.

He was among Penrith's best on Sunday against his old side. For whatever reason, he is a born and bred big game player, and will need to be next week against Brisbane.

The Panthers base their game on metres from the back, and both wingers were heavily involved, with Alamoti and To'o combining for 500 metres and five tries.

Jacob Preston is Canterbury's best bright spot
The Bulldogs were bad on Sunday afternoon. There is no getting around that.

In fact, they have been pretty average for a number of weeks now.

But one player who just keeps turning up, keeps churning out consistent performances, is Jacob Preston.

He was their best by a considerable distance against Penrith, and the argument can very easily be made that he should be on the plane to England in a couple of weeks time.