The Panthers millionaire factory: $27m and counting for club’s brightest and best

Moses Leota leaves the finances to Mrs Leota, but he’s happy to report his “Last Ride” T-shirts venture with James Fisher-Harris and his partner is making a motza.

The T-shirts, featuring the two front-rowers, commemorate the latest round of Panthers to move on from one of the greatest production lines rugby league has seen - earning a rather large motza themselves in the process.

This masthead estimates a total of almost $27 million has been earned by a dozen of the most notable Panthers, who by the end of the season, will have moved on since 2020.

As reported by colleague Andrew Webster, 19 of the last 27 players to leave the club have done so to earn the biggest contracts of their careers.

The true seven-figure tally of Penrith’s departees is far greater when one-time assistant coaches Cameron Ciraldo (Bulldogs), Andrew Webster (Warriors) and Trent Barrett (Bulldogs) are factored in.

Ciraldo’s five-year deal as Barrett’s eventual replacement at Canterbury has been pegged at up to $800,000 a season, while Webster’s original Warriors deal was upgraded and extended with another three years at the end of 2023.

Since Penrith embarked on a run of four straight grand finals and three premierships in a row, Ivan Cleary has farewelled at least two key players each year for rival pay days the club just couldn’t match.

Jarome Luai’s $6 million, five-year deal to lead the Tigers next season places him atop a pile that includes Bulldogs trio Matt Burton, Viliame Kikau and Stephen Crichton, Tigers skipper Api Koroisau and Roosters opponent on Friday night, Spencer Leniu.

Luai is set on leaving the club with a fourth premiership ring, and the bookmakers have Penrith as second favourites to send he, Fisher-Harris and Tigers-bound Sunia Turuva out with one last title.

Already, the 27-year-old has reclaimed his NSW Origin jersey and established himself as a genuine No.7, stepping into Nathan Cleary’s shoes like few predicted.

“It was a bit of a challenge after Origin because it was coming pretty fast for me,” Luai says of his looming departure.

“But I think being able to talk about it and address how I was feeling helped me understand that I still have a job to do so I have to put the emotion aside.

“I’ve had little conversations with the boys that are leaving and conversations with my partner about it all. A lot of us are moving on so a lot of attention has been on us. I didn’t want it to be about us. It’s about the whole team and all of our journeys.”

Luai is at the pointiest end of the Panthers’ big-earning graduates. But the likes of Burton, Leniu and Parramatta’s J’maine Hopgood have also secured healthy upgrades to the initial deals that took them out of Penrith.

Hopgood left the Panthers looking for an NRL opportunity at around $150,000. He was the Eels’ best forward last season, a Queensland Origin debutant this season and last month was upgraded until the end of 2027.

Back-up halves Sean O’Sullivan and Jack Cogger have turned chances at Penrith into full-time gigs and three-year deals at the Dolphins and Knights.

Daine Laurie joined the Tigers after three games for Penrith on a back-ended deal that pushed well past $300,000, but has since returned to the Panthers for half that and a chance to play with the premiers.

By the start of next season in Las Vegas, Martin, Cleary and Leota will be among just six remaining Panthers from the 2020 grand final alongside captain Isaah Yeo, Dylan Edwards and Brian To’o.

“Each year we’ve had good people leave and it’s been pretty emotional each time,” Martin says. “But this is probably the biggest one for me with Romey. it’s just the fact that we’ve played together since SG Ball, that’s a long time and it’s pretty special.

“We met as teenagers in under-20s and it was a great, quality side.

”But they’d give you big presentations and chats about how many people actually graduate from under-20s and play NRL and make a career out of it: ‘There’s only two of you who will actually make an NRL career out of this’. And you’d sit there and say, ‘Righto, it won’t be me then’.

“But from that 20s side, I couldn’t tell how many have kicked on, it’s ridiculous. So for us to play together all the way through for so long, it’s going to be emotional.

“But then you see guys go elsewhere and set themselves and their families up, and go on and become leaders at other clubs, it’s part of footy and it’s pretty cool to see, too.”

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