The Panthers won against Newcastle last week when they were ordinary, yet lost to Souths when they had a serious dig.

“It’s a cruel game sometimes,” Penrith coach Ivan Cleary said.

“We knew that was what they were going to do [on that last play], we kind of covered it, but didn’t quite wrap the ball up. I thought they were really good tonight. Their skilled players came up with some big plays.”

The reigning champs had soaked up plenty of pressure and made nearly 60 more tackles than Souths, but went to the sheds at 6-all. Crichton scored after some handy lead-up work by rampaging prop Spencer Leniu.

A couple of rare Souths errors were immediately punished by the two-time premiers in the second half, including a Mitchell knock-on that paved the way for Crichton to score his second. And Crichton was over again when Jed Cartwright spilled the ball while trying to squeeze a pass.

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Crichton scored all of Penrith’s 18 points because a groin injury prevented Cleary from goal-kicking duties.

There was even a little drama in front of the Souths’ coaching box after full-time between a few fans, only for assistant coach and Souths legend Sam Burgess to help calm the situation.

Cleary came up with a bell-ringer on Walker, Crichton was forever racing out of the line to put pressure on Souths left edge - there was more than one attempt at snatching an intercept like he did against the Rabbits in the 2021 grand final - while Mitchell caused a brief scare when he clutched at his left groin after a tackle.

These two teams will push deep into September. Again. It would be great if they could play against each other every second week.

Penrith march on to Bathurst next week where the Wests Tigers await. Souths head north to take on competition leaders Brisbane.

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