‘They’re an unreal bunch’: Pat Carrigan’s admiration for Penrith’s premiership culture

The Queensland and Australia champion spent plenty of time with Nathan Cleary and Isaah Yeo during the Kangaroos’ victorious World Cup campaign at the end of last year. He got to know the Panthers captain well enough that he and Cleary travelled through Europe with a group of teammates after the tournament was over.

From some particularly critical perspectives, the perception of the Panthers is that after winning back-to-back premierships, the players are overly cocky and unnecessarily boastful.

But after Brisbane’s 13-12 victory over the premiers in Penrith on Friday night, Carrigan defended his Kangaroos teammates and admitted their confident vibe is exactly what the Broncos are trying to build.

“They cop a lot, those Penrith boys but they’re an unreal bunch of lads,” he told CODE Sports.

“I actually love it to be honest, they’re themselves unapologetically and they’re good for the community.

“If we can build that same vibe in our own way in Brisbane, we’ll have a good year.”

Just like everyone else, the hardworking Broncos lock wants what Penrith have.

Not just premiership success, but a winning culture with a group of close mates that the community can’t help but get around.

Friday night’s upset win over the reigning premiers will go a long way to restoring the relationship with Brisbane fans, who may still be shattered after last year’s finish to the season. While the Broncos had their most wins (13) since 2018 last season, they won just one of their last six games and slipped from fourth after round 19 to miss the finals for the third year straight.

“Sometimes you can overthink footy a bit, but at the end of the day you just have to turn up for each other,” he said.

“Penrith have done that week in and week out for a couple of years now.

“We’re one week into the season, so hopefully we can build that.

“There’s few boys leaving at the end of the year, so for me there’s a strong motivation to be successful here and I want to finish this year with a bang instead.”

The Panthers were clear favourites to beat the Broncos at Bluebet Stadium and continue the party for fans still riding the high of twin premierships.

However, somewhat expectedly considering the loss of Viliame Kikau and Api Koroisau from the team, the premiers looked clunky in attack and in contrast the Broncos were defensively sound.

A strange anomaly in the draw means the Broncos have 14 clashes with top-eight sides from 2022 this season, which is the most of any side.

But now that the biggest hurdle is cleared – Penrith at Penrith – some faith has been restored in the playing group.

“It gives us confidence. Everyone knows how we fell out of the top four at the back end of last year but it just goes to show that we can compete with these teams,” Carrigan said.

“We’re a younger group but everyone is getting smarter and learning how to get better and we’re really lucky … we’ve got a coaching staff who has won a fair few competitions and they keep drilling into us that defence wins comps so that’s a starting point for us.

“We’re not going to have any trouble attacking but we’ve needed to fix our defence.”