James Graham has suggested a radical plan to thwart the might of the ‘frightening’ Penrith Panthers, who locked in a spot in their fourth straight grand final after a 38-4 thrashing of the Storm in Friday night’s preliminary final.
The Panthers are 80 minutes away from clinching the title of best team in the modern era. A win next Sunday would be Penrith’s third straight premiership.
Parramatta (1981-1983) were the most recent team to achieve that feat with the Dragons (11 straight from 1956-1966) and the Rabbitohs (1953-1955) the only other two sides to win three straight premierships.
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In a radical idea, Graham suggested the NRL look at implementing an expansion draft whenever the 18th team enters the league, as a way to break up the Panthers roster.
“When you talk about some of the players on their roster, if you compare them to other players, they have not reached their peak ages yet which is absolutely frightening,” Graham said on Fox League.
“I know back in the St George dominance era, the league at the time had to change the rules as it wasn’t fair. The governing body sat back and said ‘we need to do something about this because the competition is unfair’ so they changed some rules.
“I’m being generally serious with this, could the NRL be saying ‘ok when we bring an 18th team in do we need to do an expansion draft and the Panthers can’t protect their players’.
“They have to break them up.”
Panthers legend Greg Alexander fired back, noting “the salary cap is doing a fair job”.
“There are a couple more leaving at the end of this year too… The cap is working,” Alexander said.
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In recent seasons, star players such as Viliame Kikau, Api Koroisau, Matt Burton have left Penrith and signed elsewhere for big money.
Stephen Crichton and Spencer Leniu are two more who will play for different clubs from 2024.
Despite losing such starpower, the Panthers continue to operate as a well-oiled machine, with club’s depth is so rich with talent that the guys waiting in the wings are able to step in and do their part.
Like many, Graham is in awe of the Panthers juggernaut, especially at their continued dominance despite losing the amount of quality players that they have.
“It’s incredible what they’ve done. The salary cap is there and everybody is on an even playing field and yet they continue on,” he said.
“They lose key position players. When they lost Koroisau last year I generally questioned it and thought this was the breaking point. They are back to the pack. But they are not back to the pack, you could argue they are better then they have been before.”
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