The Panthers are pushing the known limits of rugby league success. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
You can run on for a long time but for the past few seasons the story has remained the same - sooner or later at this time of year Penrith are going to cut you down and they're going to enjoy doing it.
They have claimed victory so many times over the past four years it feels like we have seen them win games in every fashion they can be won.
There have been thumping wins and last-gasp triumphs, hard-nosed grinds and second-half surges. You think of a way to get it done and Penrith have done it that way.
Their 38-4 win over Melbourne in the first preliminary final was of a particular but common style.
Sometimes the cruellest thing of all is a little bit of hope, and Penrith gave the Victorians just a sliver of it before they snatched it away. The Storm were willing to trade blows with them - for a while.
Brian To'o and Justin Olam traded tries early with Olam's score coming after the Papua New Guinea man brushed past Panthers centre Izack Tago with ease. Perhaps there was a chance for the Storm. It was 4-all and they were doing all the right things. Perhaps they could pull off this heist.
But then reality arrived. The Storm's punches lost their sting, especially when the imposing Nelson Asofa-Solomona left the field but Penrith's never stopped coming.
James Fisher-Harris and Isaah Yeo did just about whatever they wanted in the middle of the field as they, for the most part, put the passes away and muscled up as only they and the rest of Penrith's brute squad of props can.
To'o chewed up the metres like he hadn't eaten for three days, finishing with three tries, 164 metres, 11 tackle busts and three tries.
Plenty of teams can get sick of winning once they've done it enough but the Panthers have never, ever got sick of making everyone else lose.
In a way it's fitting that Melbourne were once again in the crosshairs.
The Storm have taught Penrith lessons - a hard one in defeat in the 2020 grand final, when the Panthers were still a bit new at all this, and a transformative one in Penrith's victory the 2021 prelim, where the work of carving this dynasty into a brutal reality truly began.
Jarome Luai's shoulder didn't give him any more trouble than the Storm defence and he was able to spend the last 22 minutes on the sideline, resting up for the battles to come.
Melbourne's Josh Ado-Carr tackles Penrith's Nathan Cleary Photo: AAP IMAGE
Melbourne, who had to be perfect or close to it to even have a shot in this one, dropped easy passes and gave away foolish penalties.
In the end, it was the heaviest preliminary final defeat in NRL history as Penrith again welcomed another opponent into their favourite worst nightmare.
The Storm were in it for a little while, they really were, but by the time the dust settled, the couple of minutes they might have dreamed they could win this game must have felt like a bad haircut from one's youth - something they honestly felt looked good at the time, but later came to regret.
The Panthers are into their fourth-straight grand final and are after a third premiership in a row and show no signs of slowing down, or of complacency, or even of any real weakness, barring a missed tackle or two from Tago.
They are already one of the greatest sides of the NRL era, if they win next week they will have a fair claim at being one of the best sides ever to play this sport.
The numbers will be replayed many times until next Sunday so let's get into them now.
The Panthers are just the fourth side of the limited tackle era - that's since 1967 for those of you playing at home - to make four grand finals in a row.
The Storm were one of them, from 2006 to 2009, but even they only won two of them, it wasn't back-to-back, and those titles were later rescinded due to salary cap breaches.
Of the other two teams only one of them - the 1981-83 Parramatta Eels - won three premierships in a row.
They're the only side since the legendary Dragons sides of the 1950s and 1960s, who claimed 11 on the trot, to win the last game of the season back-to-back-to-back.
In these Panthers, we have a team whose success can only be measured if we push our understanding of football history to the limits of living memory.
We are off the edge of the map in terms of their greatness, in the place where monsters dwell and only the very best can still find true north.
Panthers players are seen during the national anthem prior to the NRL Premiership Grand Final Photo: AAP / www.photosport.nz
The Panthers are bending the reality of rugby league to their will in a way none of the other teams of the past 40 years - not the best of Craig Bellamy's Storm or Trent Robinson's Roosters, nor any of Wayne Bennet's Broncos or Tim Sheens' Raiders - has been able to do.
Each of those sides loved winning and Penrith do as well, but they take just as much joy in making their opponents lose and there's a difference. They don't just want to extend their season, they want to end yours.
Since that day, Penrith have played like there was nothing left to fear.
They have won eight finals matches in a row. The Broncos and Warriors are both good sides and either would be a worthy opponent, but let's not kid ourselves - the Panthers are going to be favourites, big ones, and rightly so.
If even if they win it again, will anyone bet against a fourth? Can this ever end? Will the rest of the league ever find a way to deal with this monster who lurks at the end of their dreams?
The job is not done. All-time status has not yet been confirmed. One game still remains, the biggest of them all, and even with all their glories the pressure is on the Panthers.
They will face a team who have the hunger of the contender and have not had to fight off the malaise that can come with life on the mountaintop.
But Penrith stand on the precipice of an almost unfathomable greatness. They are defying decades of NRL measures specifically designed to stop any team from doing what they have done. Every slight has been avenged twice over. All the perceived wrongs have been righted.
There are no more points to be proven or non-believers to be converted.
There is only the thrill of victory and the sensation of trampling over an enemy who is helpless. If you want a vision of this era of rugby league, and perhaps of the future, imagine a Panthers jersey running over the top of somebody, leaving them in their wake and running away laughing because they know they can't be caught.
-ABC
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
