NRL grand final 2023: James Fisher-Harris relishing chance to confront Payne Haas

Fisher-Harris and Haas are regarded as two of the best in the game and have led from the front as their respective sides have surged towards the premiership.

Their duel on Sunday night will go a long way towards deciding the outcome of the grand final as history beckons for the Panthers.

Fisher-Harris calls himself a student of the game and concedes that Haas has been a force of nature since his arrival in the NRL.

He also knows it is his job to help put the clamps on the Broncos giant.

“I think I make it personal every week to be honest,” Fisher-Harris said.

“He (Haas) has been on a pedestal ever since he came in the league. He has been killing it, still is.”

Asked what he liked about Haas’ game, Fisher-Harris replied: “Effort areas and just bangs out heaps of minutes.

“He is just solid all round - he has motor, he is big, he is athletic. He pretty much has everyone ticked off. I am a student of the game, I study a lot.”

From a purely statistical standpoint, Haas is light years ahead of Fisher-Harris. He averages more hit-ups, more metres, more tackle busts and more offloads than the Panthers prop. Haas is also one of the best defensive front rowers in the game.

Yet statistics don’t tell the whole story when it comes to what Fisher-Harris means to Penrith. The New Zealand international and his rotation with Moses Leota and Spencer Leniu lays a devastating platform for Jarome Luai and Nathan Cleary to work their magic.

As a group, they are just about unmatched in the NRL. The Broncos may be the only side that can go with them given their middle trio of Haas, Pat Carrigan and Thomas Flegler.

Asked how the Panthers could dilute Haas’ impact at Accor Stadium, Fisher-Harris conceded there were few answers.

“Make sure he gets less ball,” he said.

“There is not much you can do against someone like that. You just have to be on ball I guess.”

While Fisher-Harris was playing his cards close to his chest, Penrith have found the antidote to Haas at least once this season.

When the sides met in round one, Haas ran for more than 200 metres as the Broncos pulled off an upset win. When they met later in the year, the Panthers did a job on Haas as they held him to just over 100 metres.

No side managed to control Haas as well as Penrith and if they can replicate that feat on Sunday night, they will take a big step towards another title.

Asked about the prospect of winning a third consecutive title, Fisher-Harris said: “I am just out here having fun to be honest. I love this job. I am not really counting stuff. This is what I do.”

WHY PANTHERS ROYALTY IS PLOTTING PENRITH’S DOWNFALL

His family is Penrith royalty but John Cartwright will elbow all emotion and sentiment to one side in Sunday’s NRL grand final, declaring: “I’m a Bronco now.”

Cartwright, Brisbane’s assistant coach, will be conspiring to take down the mighty Panthers, his childhood club which six of his relatives have proudly represented.

A driving force behind the Broncos’ late-season surge, Cartwright will always have a “soft spot” for Penrith, the club his late father Merv helped win entry into the NSWRL competition back in 1967.

But Sunday will be all business.

Asked whether he was a Panther or Bronco, Cartwright said: “I’m a Bronco now, mate. There’s no room for emotion. It’s a little bit like when you play your mate in golf. You do anything you can to beat them.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a soft spot for Penrith. It was Dad’s lifework, to get Penrith to where they are.

“Getting Penrith on the map, it took over dad’s life, it was his burning ambition. He thought the best way to do was by having a team in the NSWRL.

“His vision was to make Penrith the best club in the land but I’m sure he would be cheering for the Broncos this weekend because blood is a lot thicker than water as far as dad was concerned.

“The first 40 years of my life was spent at Penrith, from the day I was born. Penrith Park was my backyard.

“I never played for anyone else, that was all I wanted to do so it’s a bit ironic I suppose that we’re playing Penrith in a grand final.

“Footy is a different beast these days, it takes you in different directions and you can end up anywhere.

“Like I said, when you’re up against your mate or brother, you try that little bit harder.”

The Cartwright family is synonymous with Penrith.

John is a Panthers legend, having played 185 games at the club, including the 1991 grand final.

His nephew, Bryce, now a Parramatta Eel, played at Penrith between 2014 and 2017.

Jed Cartwright, John’s son, played one game for Penrith in 2019 before joining Souths. He will play for Newcastle from next season.

David Cartwright is Bryce’s father who played for Penrith in the early 1980s.

Merv was the godfather of Penrith while John’s brothers, Cliff and Michael, played for Penrith in 1970s and ‘80s while their sister, Mary, is married to Jim Jones, Penrith’s longstanding recruitment manager.

As difficult as it will be, John said he will cast aside that history for 80 minutes at Accor Stadium by attempting to guide Brisbane to a famous premiership.

“I’m working with the Broncos, I’m loving it and want to work here for as long as I can,” Cartwright said. “We’re going to Sydney believing we can win and we’ll be doing everything we can to win.

“I always check to see how Penrith is going and their progress. I know dad would be super, super proud of how Penrith has performed in recent years and I’m sure he’ll be up there watching this Sunday.”

THE LUCKIEST MAN IN SUNDAY’S NRL GRAND FINAL

If one week is a long time in rugby league then one year is career changing.

No two players can attest to this more than Luke Garner and Api Koroisau.

Twelve months ago former Wests Tigers backrower Garner was holidaying in the Northern Territory, as then Penrith hooker Koroisau stepped up to the microphone at grand final celebrations joking he’d never taste the same success at Concord.

Today, Koroisau is the one on holiday after going from premiership winner at Penrith to a wooden spooner at the Tigers.

While Garner is potentially 80 minutes from completing the opposite.

“Yeah, I’m in a very different spot today than what I was this time last year,” Garner said.

“I was actually still on my holiday with my girlfriend in the Top End.

“This is actually my first NRL finals series too. It’s been a completely different experience and all my family and friends have been asking what it’s like to play finals footy.”

After winning just three games last year and picking up the wooden spoon at the Tigers, Garner is one game away from making history as a Panther.

A victory in Sunday’s grand final against Brisbane will make Garner only the third player in the NRL era to go from a bottom placed finish to a title winner.

Winger Brenko Lee won the title with Melbourne in 2020 after joining the Storm from the Gold Coast Titans and English forward Harvey Howard lifted the trophy with Brisbane in 2000 after moving up north from the Western Suburbs Magpies.

“It’s a very short list apparently,” Garner said.

“To be fair, when you’re part of this Panthers group, it doesn’t feel like the season should be done in September.

“There’s a sense that we should still be here at this time of the year. We’re exactly where we are meant to be.

“The energy is so high that even after Sunday, I reckon I’ll still feel like I’ve got more training and more football to be played.”

This September could have easily turned into groundhog day for Garner.

With his time at Concord at an end in 2022, after five seasons at the club, both of last year’s grand finalists, in Parramatta and the Panthers, were pursuing the forward’s signature.

What would have felt as a safe bet at Eels, would have only resigned Garner to another early pre-season after Parramatta missed the finals series.

Thankfully for Garner, Penrith coach Ivan Cleary, who handed the 28-year old his NRL debut during their time at the Tigers together, came knocking.

“I had other options at the time, but once Ivan approached me and put some interest in signing me it was too hard to say no,” Garner said.

“He gave me my debut game and that’s something I‘m indebted to him for.

“The resume this club had put together over the last couple of years, that’s really hard to say no too.

“I knew this place had a good culture I would benefit from. When everyone is working hard, you fall into the same pattern. Everything else just takes care of itself.”

Sunday’s showdown at Accor Stadium is also a chance for Garner to turn a past bitter grand final experience into a sweet one.

Where this time, the players responsible for his misery are the same players that could decide whether he tastes victory and joins the record books.

Garner lined up for Many in the under 20s grand final back in 2015 against a Penrith outfit that boasts his current teammates Jarome Luai, Dylan Edwards, James Fisher-Harris and Moses Leota.

Led by Luai, Penrith thumped the Sea Eagles 34-18.

“Oh man, we’ve all had a bit of a joke and a laugh about that. Obviously, it wasn’t the best time for me but all those boys who played in that game remember it well, not surprisingly,” Garner laughed.

But Garner’s first season at the foot of the mountains hasn’t been all ‘laughs’.

Competing against workhorse forward Zac Hosking to replace Viliame Kikau on the edge, Garner got the nod in round one.

Garner suffered a rib injury in round four and Hosking would not only replace him in the backrow but keep him out of the side for the next three months.

“It’s been a bit of a roller coaster,” Garner said.

“I hurt my ribs earlier in the year and I was a bit defeated. I was in the team and then when I came back into the team, I’d lost my spot.

“That was tough, I had to stay mentally strong and not kick stones.

“Ivan just said I had to wait for my opportunity again. I trusted him, that if I worked hard I’d get my spot back.”

Garner not only earned his place back in Cleary’s side but is now the one who looks set to keep Hosking, who was named in the reserves, out of the grand final after playing 21 games this season.

Garner knows the only way to keep his spot after Sunday is to deliver the performance of his career.

He’ll have the added motivation of playing in the match in honour of his late father Mark, who died suddenly of a heart attack in 2019.

“My dad was actually my first coach, he coached me for a few years when I was a kid. I was around nine when he started coaching me, he was the one who taught me the basics,” Garner said.

“He used to play footy so he taught me what he knew.

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“He would have been stoked to see him in a grand final if he was still around.

“There’s nothing more I would have wanted than for him to be there this weekend.

“But when I’m out there on Sunday, I‘ll be playing with him in mind.”

Originally published as NRL grand final 2023: James Fisher-Harris relishing chance to confront Payne Haas