Twenty-point comebacks are a regular occurrence in the NRL these days, but Penrith’s effort in rallying from 31-8 down against fledgling Wests Tigers in 2000 ranked as the second-biggest revival in premiership history at the time – and altered the trajectory of both teams’ seasons.
In their first season after the joint venture between Western Suburbs and Balmain formed, the Tigers were sailing along in second spot ahead of their Round 18 visit to Penrith Stadium. The Panthers were ninth but on the improve, having emerged from a four-match slide to win their next four matches.
The Wayne Pearce-coached Tigers’ freewheeling, uncompromising and at-times antagonistic brand of football – led by the abrasive likes of halfback Craig Field, controversial winger John Hopoate and captain Darren Senter – seemed set to pay dividends.
Chris Hicks scored the opening try for the home side, but the Tigers piled on five unanswered tries to storm to a 23-point lead. Field’s brilliant chip-and-chase and tip-on set up a dazzling Joel Caine try, Kevin McGuiness slotted a field goal on halftime and sliced through to score less than two minutes into the second stanza, and Field and Hopoate both produced superb lead-up work to set up long-range tries for each other.
With The Footy Show’s try celebration competition at its height, Hopoate unveiled his impressive of WWE superstar The Rock. Panthers second-rower Matt Adamson took exception to the showboating and shoved the ex-Manly powerhouse – helping spark a phenomenal turnaround.
“He was just rubbing it in our faces,” Adamson said afterwards.
“I wasn’t going to cop ‘Hoppa’ doing that in front of our fans. I felt like a bit of an idiot when I did it, but it was probably the best thing to happen.
“When they scored the last try, we were gone. I looked at everyone, they had their heads down, they were devastated. I don’t think we knew what had hit us.
“We were behind the goal-line and I just said: ‘Fellas, come on, keep our heads up. Let’s not turn it into a flogging’.”
A helter skelter try featuring eight passes and finished off by centre Shane Elford (who later played in the Tigers’ 2005 grand final-winning team) in the 57th minute kick-started the Penrith fightback.
Australian Test hooker Craig Gower dived over in the Panthers’ next set, then a three-minute double from blockbusting Kiwis second-rower Tony Puletua slashed the deficit to just one point, sparking delirium among the 16,498-strong crowd.
Hicks, who came into the match as a career 59 percent goalkicker, made it six-from-six for the afternoon by burying the clutch conversion of Puletua’s second try – putting the Panthers up 32-31 with nine minutes left.
The shellshocked Tigers frantically searched for a response, but when fullback Matt Seers’ last-minute field goal attempt skewed away a famous Panthers victory was assured.
Pearce blamed “a relaxation in intensity” for the Tigers’ collapse.
“These are the games that expose character,” Pearce added.
The jarring result was a portent of the remainder of the season for the merged outfit. The Tigers won just two of their last 10 games to miss out on a debut-season Top 8 finish by two competition points.
Royce Simmons’ Panthers, meanwhile, continued to surge, finishing the regular season on a 10-3 run to land in fifth place – just the club’s second finals appearance since winning the 1991 premiership.
“It’s hard to compare teams, but if you put this side up against the [1991] grand final side, we’d beat the other side by a mile,” veteran skipper Steve Carter said following the emotional win over the Tigers, perhaps veering into the hyperbolic.
“While the game’s obviously totally different nowadays, the potential is there for this side to be far more successful.”
The Panthers bowed out in week two of the finals with a loss to Parramatta.
Neither team was able to build on the platform of promising 2000 campaigns, however. Simmons’ seven-season tenure as Panthers coach concluded with their first wooden spoon for 21 years in 2001, while the Tigers were just two spots ahead on the table under Terry Lamb in a season mired in on- and off-field incidents that resulted in long suspensions for Hopoate, Field and McGuinness.
The Panthers’ 23-point comeback was second only to the Cowboys’ rally from 26-0 down at their expense at the same ground two years earlier. In the ensuing 10 seasons, the NRL witnessed five comeback victories of 22 points or more.
