The inside story of how Brisbane beat Penrith at their own game

As he often does, Nathan Cleary picked it and then said it best. He is the best player in the game after all.

“I thought the difference last year, and probably over the last four years, is we were in positions to save tries,” Cleary lamented after losing his first finals game, and thus finishing without a premiership ring for the first time, since 2021.

“We actually saved them [in years past], where tonight we probably didn’t do that.”

In short, Brisbane did. The Broncos have raw power and athleticism and points for days when their passes stick. Like never before on Sunday afternoon, they defended like demons - it didn’t matter when the ball went astray.

Brisbane ride momentum like no-one else, and in their past two clashes they have engineered 16 and 14-point comebacks in front of sold-out crowds losing their collective minds.

With a capacity Suncorp crowd literally shaking the great ground (apparently a feat not even the rowdiest Origin crowds have managed), the Broncos prevailed thanks to a dash of Penrith.

Only a bit mind you, because players like Dylan Edwards and Reece Walsh, Cleary and Adam Reynolds, Isaah Yeo and Payne Haas are fire and ice. The Broncos’ blood runs hot in key moments, the Panthers – ice-cold.

But for Penrith to play 56 per cent of the game in Brisbane’s half, enjoy five extra sets of six and 44 tackles in the Broncos’ 20, and lose?

“Their scramble [defence] was excellent,” a chuffed Michael Maguire said.

“We’ve practised it over and over. The hours and hours that you spend practising that … that’s for these moments.”

Countless examples abounded as Penrith’s 14-point lead was slowly whittled away. None better than when Haas fell upon a Cleary grubber that had ‘Blaize Talagi try’ written all over it.

“He’s a freak,” was Cleary’s simple summation afterwards.

If anything, that was an understatement, considering Haas cramped up as he saved the try, then got to his feet bloodied but hardly beaten, with 36 tackles and 15 runs for 127 metres to his name.

He would finish with 182 metres, 46 tackles and not a minute missed in one of the great front-row performances of recent times.

With ample time spent defending their line, Jordan Riki hammered Nathan Cleary on one play, while Isaah Yeo was rounded up after a mid-field break.

Again and again, Penrith went left to Casey McLean and Talagi, again and again, Riki, Kotoni Staggs and Adam Reynolds always managed to hang on, drag their man down or force an error.

It was the type of scramble the Panthers dynasty has been built on. And eventually, for the first time since the dawn of the decade, it was Penrith who blinked first.

Cleary especially, as always, was in the thick of the biggest moments. For once, they didn’t go his way.

The champion halfback’s jump up off his tryline when Ben Hunt snuck down the blindside has so often seen the pass snaffled, or least snuffed out.

Instead, it bounced up perfectly for Xavier Willison – on the same patch of Suncorp grass where Cleary had reprised his iconic 2023 grand final try.

Reynolds of course then stepped up with the clutch conversion that decided it all.

It was Walsh who somehow got the offload away for Deine Mariner to barge over. But the most precocious player in the game didn’t hesitate to hand Reynolds the latest kick of his life, albeit after Walsh had butchered a much simpler shot 10 minutes earlier.

“Those moments are for him,” Walsh said after fulltime.

“I look up to him… my time will come.”

Reynolds’ pre-game speech had centred on those game-defining moments, the smaller the better, and trying to out-play Penrith the same way they have outplayed all comers for the past four years.

Right to the last, Cleary and the Panthers kept coming. But for once, the moments got to them.

Their last set and a game-saving two-point field goal shot was a mess. It was Edwards who ended up spraying a forlorn Hail Mary as the final play of Penrith’s season.

Brisbane roll on into the grand final - blood running hot once again.

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