There have been great teams, and then there's the Penrith Panthers half-decade of domination and premiership success that will be remembered for a long time.
What the Penrith Panthers constructed from 2021 to the present day is something more unsettling.
Not merely just a well-drilled side, but a system built to score, built to adapt, built to survive any defensive scheme an opposition coach could dream up.
Their attack didn't just win games. It rewired expectations about what a rugby league offence should look like.
This is how they did it.
2021: The first of four
The foundation of Penrith's attack in 2021 was built on the relentless work of their forward pack, most notably James Fisher-Harris, Moses Leota and Isaah Yeo.
Fisher-Harris operated as a ball carrier, consistently winning the middle metres through the first three tackles to give the halves clean ruck speed and field position from which to operate.
His ability, along with Brian To'o, to generate post-contact metres reduced the workload on Apisai Koroisau and ensured Penrith's sets were rarely stopped behind the line of advantage.
Completing sets at an elite rate was central to their entire system, and building error-free football kept opposition defences in a constant state of pressure, preventing momentum-swinging turnovers, allowing their attack to build structurally across the full six tackles.
Isaah Yeo established himself as a tactical element of the 2021 attack as a ball-playing, playmaking lock, which was the most underappreciated concept on the course to Penrith's first premiership in four consecutive years.
Acting as a third-half on the field, Yeo has been a first receiver off the dummy-half, creating ball-playing sequences to get the ball to his playmakers, and time to read the defensive line before committing to a play.
This allowed Penrith to run three-man playmaking structures where almost every other side had two, overloading defences with decision points and making it extremely difficult for the opposition to assign conventional defensive markers.
Yeo's carrying game created width in their attack by engaging the line, rather than simply passing off the ruck, forcing opposition backrower defenders and middle forwards to commit to him or risk giving up metres through the middle.
The shapes that would come off the back of Yeo's intentional running game allowed Cleary to build shape for Luai to create on the left edge with Matt Burton and Brian To'o, as well as leverage the physicality and size of Viliame Kikau as a decoy runner.
Cleary's kicking game in 2021 was among the most complete seen from an NRL halfback in the modern era, and it was used tactically as a territorial management tool. His grubber kick to the in-goal corner, particularly when rolled with backspin along the turf, regularly trapped opposing fullbacks and forced them to exit from poor field positions.
On the last tackle of sets, Cleary liked to operate with variety, grubbers, cross-field bombs targeting aerial contests, and high kicks to congested areas, which prevented defences from loading up for any single exit play.
Penrith were highly structured and rehearsed in using scrum possession as a launching pad. With the scrum rule changes in 2021 offering extra set count opportunities, they consistently drew up pre-designed plays from scrum feeds that exploited the reduced defensive alignment on the attacking team's edge.
From these sets, they had the time and personnel depth to run deceptive shapes before the defensive line had fully reset, often getting Cleary into space or releasing the left edge combination against scrambling defenders who hadn't had time to communicate assignments.
Their exploitation of set-piece ball was systematic and spoke to the quality of their attacking coach at the time, Andrew Webster, and his preparation, ensuring that what might have been dead-ball situations for lesser sides became try-scoring opportunities for Penrith.
2022: The inevitable back-to-back
Ivan Cleary's 2022 Panthers were built entirely around a closed-loop system, building field position dominance, feeding defensive pressure, which would feed their attacking opportunities, which fed field position again.
The base attacking shape was built around a three-plus-one spine sweep. Three forwards operated in tight middle positions to establish a physical and fast-paced ruck.
Apisai Koroisau would often play square to the play-the-ball, giving the halves a short trigger option and keeping the defensive line honest on their inside shoulders.
The left edge was the primary strike edge and was built on controlled chaos rather than rigid structure. The combination of Jarome Luai, Viliame Kikau, and the rookies Izack Tago and Taylan May created a shape where Kikau's hard unders line threatened the inside shoulder of the second defender, forcing a decision between holding the line or committing to the crash.
Luai played almost entirely off instinct and eye contact; he was reading body language rather than executing pre-set patterns, which made him exceptionally difficult to defend because there was no single trigger a defensive line could key on.
The second-layer shift to Tago was the primary exit point when Luai held the ball long enough to freeze the edge, and Dylan Edwards, inserted as a third option, further stressed the defensive count. This edge thrived on late decisions and the ability to exploit whatever the defence gave rather than forcing a pre-determined outcome.
The right edge operated on an entirely different principle. Cleary used that side for precision and territorial control rather than strike. The block shape and decoy runner lines run by Stephen Crichton created inside-out pressure that set up early ball to Brian To'o, but more importantly, the right side was Cleary's kicking platform.
Almost every territorial or set-ending kick came from a right-side structure that positioned him optimally for corner kicks, end-over-end traps, and contestable bombs. The two edges were deliberately asymmetric, as the left side was where points came from, and the right side was how they manufactured the field position to access the left.
The sweep shape that Penrith executed better than any team in the competition was a product of layering two or three decoy runners hitting the inside shoulders in sequence, each one drawing defensive eyes and compressing the line slightly further inward, before the ball came out the back to the half with the fullback trailing as a secondary release.
By the time Penrith were executing these shapes, their forward pack had already dragged the defensive line back ten to fifteen metres over the course of a set through dominant post-contact carries and fast play-the-balls.
The yardage game was the most underrated and arguably most important weapon in the entire system. The back five of Edwards, To'o and May were carrying the ball early in sets, and were extraordinarily efficient at generating metres on tackles one through three.
Strong leg drives, hard contact, and an emphasis on staying on their feet through contact created consistently fast play-the-balls that denied the defensive line its reset time.
The territory-first mentality meant that Penrith were entirely comfortable completing a set at eighty per cent efficiency and finishing it with a kick. It forced opposition teams to complete more than they wanted to from deep, accumulating fatigue and error pressure without Penrith ever having to play high-risk football.
2023: Trust the system
The most repeatable and low-error strike in Penrith's 2023 attacking arsenal was the Cleary right edge block to early ball. The play would normally begin with the ball in the middle-right third, with Isaah Yeo taking the first receiver role and Nathan Cleary setting up two to three passes deep behind the line.
Outside of him, Liam Martin would play off the ball as the lead decoy, while right centre Tago sits slightly deeper, and the winger hugs the touchline. Dylan Edwards would trail on Cleary's inside shoulder, while Yeo received the ball square to the line, engaging the A and B defenders just enough to hold them without drifting, because if he drifts, the entire shape collapses.
In these sequences, the ball is passed to Cleary late and flat enough to force the defensive line to commit forward. At that precise moment, Martin would run a hard line at the inside shoulder of the edge defender, allowing Cleary to square up to the line holding the ball in two hands.
He would like to take a slight half-step inward to freeze the edge defender, creating a three-way decision for the defence: bite on Martin for the short ball, hold on Cleary, or slide to Tago.
Cleary reads the defence in sequence: if the edge defender turns in, he hits Martin short; if the defender plants, he engages and passes late to Tago; if the defence drifts early, he throws the early ball to Tago before the line compresses; and if the winger jams, he goes long.
On the left edge, Luai ran a timing-based sweep that replaced the chaos Viliame Kikau had previously provided. With the ball played left-middle and Yeo again taking first receiver, Luai would set deeper than Cleary typically does, already moving laterally as he received the ball.
The first decoy forward ran a tight unders line aimed at the inside shoulder of the edge defender, not to receive the ball, but purely to compress the line. Luai would then drift, square up late, and hold the ball in both hands.
Stephen Crichton would run an outside-in line rather than a flat one, which was critical because it allowed him to attack the space between centre and winger or receive the ball earlier if required.
The key 2023 adjustment was in how Edwards was used. In the quest for three in a row, he would play within the flow of their attack and arrive after the decision point, preserving the option for a late out-the-back pass when nothing else presented.
Luai's reads followed a similar hierarchy to Cleary's: pass to Crichton if the edge bites in, go long to the winger if the centre jams, cut back inside himself if the defence slides early, and hit Edwards late out the back if numbers are even.
One of the most underrated elements of Penrith's 2023 game was what can be called the double touch. Cleary would run a play within this sequence designed to manipulate defensive tempo rather than structure.
In a standard middle-third set with Yeo at first receiver, Cleary takes the ball on first touch, engages the line lightly, and passes short to a forward, often Fisher-Harris or Leota.
Immediately after passing, he loops back behind the ruck so that on the very next play-the-ball, the dummy-half hits him again on a second touch.
The first touch compresses the defence; the second touch attacks it while it is still disorganised, retreating, not fully set, and with markers split. From that second touch, Cleary can shift quickly to the edge, hit a short ball to a middle forward, or, very commonly in this particular season, produce an early kick.
Teams struggled badly when the tempo would change mid-set. That rhythm disruption, rather than any structural trick, was what made their play effective.
The early-tackle attacking kick became a genuine weapon in 2023, particularly on tackles two or three when the defence was expecting yardage. Penrith would shape as though running a normal shift, with Cleary receiving the ball with width and the winger staying high and wide.
It was how Penrith were able to make the comeback in the 2023 Grand Final, with a forty-twenty that put pressure on the Broncos' defence.
Penrith learned they didn't need to dominate possession constantly, and their confidence and trust in the system allowed them to play the long game even when they were losing in a game.
2024: Adaptability and footy IQ
The 2024 Panthers were defined not by perfection but by adaptability, shifting from a system that dominated through structure to one that could win through chaos, transition, and situational intelligence.
The next evolution started at the set's foundation. The Panthers leaned a little bit away from relying on middle-heavy carries, adding width in their shapes, allowing them to be less predictable and have better ruck positioning.
Where 2023 used a straightforward carry to fix the middle, 2024 introduced pre-contact shifts, with Yeo executing a short tip-on or slight pass right before the line, forcing defenders to move laterally at contact rather than hold ground. The result was faster play-the-balls and broken defensive shapes.
The biggest change became from tweaking what would be a setup play, into running the full shape if conditions were right, or attacking immediately if the defence was disconnected.
Once their opposition had loaded for the tackle five strike, Penrith simply moved the attack forward. Their last tackle options became less predictable, with multiple kick launch points, more varied kick types, and earlier deliveries that prevented fullbacks and wingers from pre-loading.
The governing principle across all of it: attack when the defence is vulnerable, not when the structure says to. It allowed their decision-making to layer on top of shapes rather than be dictated by them. The capacity to win in multiple ways is what made it the most impressive of the four.
2025: Where it went wrong
The 2025 Panthers represented something new: not dominance, control, or adaptability in the clean sense, but sustained excellence under constant erosion. After years of roster turnover and opposition teams specifically designing around their patterns, the quality 2025 demanded was resilience.
The foundational shift last season was that Penrith no longer dominated or executed at an elite level every set. Earlier dynasty teams dictated ruck speed almost completely.
The 2025 version accepts that some rucks will be neutral or lost, and that forcing perfect structure into those moments is less effective than flowing quickly into secondary shapes.
That acceptance requires a different discipline than executing predetermined sequences; it requires building trust again and the willingness to attack from imperfect pictures. This showed immediately in the early tackle count for the Panthers.
The beginning of their sets retained their high-percentage carrier, but rigid positional requirements were loosened, and support players were able to be closer to the ball, ready for offloads or quick second plays, a direct response to more aggressive defensive lines designed to trap carriers before shape could form. They introduced late offloads to protect momentum when first contact is unfavourable.
Rather than a conditioning carry to fix the middle, Penrith would only attack the line if the line was disconnected and shift wide if it compressed early to build yardage if it's organised. The timeline of the set was compressed, and decision-making pushed earlier, disrupting defences that had spent years timing their preparation to the Penrith template.
Previously, the shape would fully form before execution. Now it forms while the play is happening, as Cleary in most sets would receive the ball with decoys not set, and line runners adjusted their lines in motion rather than from standing starts.
They would run a pre-set shape that teams figured out how to defend, and teams were able to overwhelm the inexperienced Blaize Talagi and Casey McLean on the left edge.
The ruck missing Fisher-Harris' presence made the Panthers' forward pack inefficient at times, and their sequences when the season started and when it mattered against the Broncos in the preliminary final were messy and included a higher turnover rate than what they were normally known for executing during their four premierships in a row.
2026: Back bigger, better, stronger, faster
The 2026 Panthers are the only undefeated side through five rounds, sitting on ten competition points with a points differential that has become historically significant.
The results: Round 1, the Panthers scored 26 while keeping the Broncos scoreless.
Round 2, the Panthers scored 26 again and conceded just six to the Sharks.
From rounds three to five, the Panthers have scored 40, 48 and 50 against the Roosters, Eels and the Storm.
That is 190 points scored in five games, averaging 38 points per game and winning by an average of 34 points, with Melbourne's defence, historically the competition's benchmark, offering no more resistance than anyone else.
Penrith did what hasn't been done to Melbourne's defence since 2003.
Blaize Talagi at six made Ivan Cleary realise they need to bring a drastic structural change to their attack.
Luai's game was built on improvisation and late decision-making, which created unpredictability but occasionally worked against structure.
Talagi, now 21 years of age and into his second full season, is a genuine first-receiver threat: a bigger body who can run hard at the line, make a defender commit to him, and deliver while the threat of contact was looming from the opposition's defensive line.
Thomas Jenkins has been the competition's leading tryscorer, becoming the first Panther to open a season with doubles in his first three games, adding four tries against the Roosters and another double against the Eels, and two more against the Storm, tallying up to 12 tries in the first five games this season, and be on pace to break the record for most tries scored by a individual player in a season (Dave Brown scored 38 in the 1935 NSWRFL season).
The breakout of Casey McLean functioning not as a traditional centre but as a secondary playmaker, taking the ball at full speed into contact, has allowed Penrith to generate metres in transition and open field sequences, putting Jenkins on a late ball that the defensive line has already committed away from.
The defence faces a binary choice on McLean: honour his line-break threat or slide to cover the winger. Penrith are consistently winning whichever decision is made.
The most deliberate structural change this off-season is the bench construction. Ivann has abandoned the conventional impact-prop model entirely, opting for mobile, versatile forwards, with Billy Phillips, Scott Sorensen, and Luke Garner, who can execute passing shapes and decoy sequences identical to the starters.
The tactical consequence is that the defensive line can never reduce its decision-making bandwidth when Penrith change up their rotations. Billy Phillips and Lindsay Smith, as well as Moses Leota, are posting front-rower metres while moving the ball like halves.
Yeo's role has expanded rather than contracted.
He is averaging more run metres, tackle breaks, offloads and post-contact metres than any previous season as faster play under six-again rules opens space through the middle.
Combining that with quick dummy-half play and both halves positioned wide, has made defences defence spread across too much field with little time to communicate.
Where Cleary in the 2022 season was primarily territorial, this year, Cleary has evolved his kicking game to weaponise that aspect of the game.
The 40/20 threat is now a genuine tactical tool, which he used against the Eels to turn momentum, and the in-goal placement kick has become a set play, with Alamoti grounding one for a try.
The 2022 Panthers manufactured inevitability through repetition and field position. Teams could shade toward the Luai-led left edge and accept some risk on the right because Cleary used that side for territory.
In 2026, both edges are functioning as strike zones simultaneously, the bench is ball-playing capable, and Edwards is generating front-rower yardage from fullback. There is no structural weak point to shade toward. Every defensive decision costs something somewhere else.
Five rounds in, including a 50-point dismantling of Melbourne, the 2026 Panthers are a genuinely different proposition to the team that finished seventh last year and were one game away from the Grand Final.
That’s one of the most interesting articles I have read in Zero Tackle.
Its contents may be right or wrong – I don’t have the savvy to critique it – but it is most enjoyable.