Season Tracker
Through 19 rounds, we're sitting at +54.94 units for the season with an overall record of 95-58 (62.09%). Round 19 dropped 2.18 units with three wins from seven Best Bets. The Storm covering -5.5 at half-time and the Rabbitohs edging the Knights to land the 1-10 margin were the highlights, while Manly losing 19-18 at home to the Cowboys as our biggest play of the week and the Sharks hanging 66 on the Dolphins to blow up a 1-10 margin were the ones that stung. Still well in the green.
With the representative period done, stars are flooding back into team lists right across the competition. The run to the finals is properly on, and we open Thursday night with a heavyweight at Penrith. Here's how I'm reading it.
Panthers vs Broncos
vs 
Penrith have owned the recent history here, winning eight of the last ten meetings, none more emphatic than the 26-0 shutout at Suncorp back in Round 1 this year. The favourite has only covered five of those ten though, and Brisbane have shown they can match it with Penrith, edging one of last year's meetings 16-14. The scoring has stayed low throughout, with the under landing in seven of the last ten at an average of just 33.6 points. Penrith are laying -13.5 with the total set at 45.5.
The Broncos come into this having lost eight straight and sitting 5-11, but the team sheet tells a very different story to the one that's been running out the last couple of months. Reece Walsh and Payne Haas are back from Origin duty, while Adam Reynolds and Patrick Carrigan have returned from injury. It's the strongest seventeen Brisbane have named in a long while.
Penrith are close to full strength themselves. Nathan Cleary, Isaah Yeo and Liam Martin are all back in, and a well-rested side coming out of the rep period is exactly the kind of team you don't want to catch when they're fresh. They've been the gold standard all season at 13-3, scoring 31.4 a game and conceding just 13.9, and they lead at half-time in 14 of their 16 games.
Thirteen and a half is a big number, and there's a genuine chance Penrith simply blow this open the way they did in Round 1. But I keep coming back to the Brisbane line-up. On paper this is too good a Broncos side to be beaten by more than three scores, and there's a feeling they have to click into gear at some stage. Penrith as a double-digit favourite have covered just four of ten this season, which tells me this big line is there to be beaten. I still have Penrith winning, just not by 13 or more, and with the margin up in double figures the game landing exactly on a 13-point Penrith win is unlikely. That's where the value sits. Rather than take Broncos +13.5, I want Penrith to win by 1-12, and I'm keeping the stake small because at their best they can still run away with it.
On the total, 45.5 is a low number but I'm leaning under anyway. This is the stage of the season where Penrith's defence really starts to show up against decent opposition, and while Brisbane will get some points, I can't see this one going back and forth. Both sides have trended under lately, the Panthers in six of their last eight and the Broncos in three of their last four, and CommBank has favoured the under at night, with two of this season's four night games going under there and eleven of the last fourteen doing so across the past two seasons combined. The one caution is that Thursday nights have leaned over across the competition this year, with eight of the thirteen going over (62%), so it stays a lean rather than the headline play.
Best Bet: Penrith to win by 1-12 $3.00 (1 unit)