The Panthers have produced one of their most explosive efforts in recent memory, blowing the New Zealand Warriors off the park with a near-flawless opening 55 minutes before running out impressive 46-22 winners at CUA Stadium.
The home side ran in four first half tries on the way to a 22-6 half time advantage, before piling on three tries in the opening 15 minutes of the second stanza against inadequate Warriors defence.
Penrith put the cue in the rack and ended up leaking three tries in the final 22 minutes, but the result was never in doubt.
Michael Gordon, Frank Pritchard and Michael Jennings all got over the line twice for the Panthers, exploiting a feeble Warriors defence that would have left coach Ivan Cleary scratching his head.
Despite a two week break courtesy of the bye, the Warriors rediscovered their self-destructive ways within minutes of the kickoff.
A knock-on in their own end, followed by a penalty for backchat presenting the Panthers with a gift two points in the fourth minute.
The home side added to their advantage in the 16th minute through Gordon, the winger latching onto a grubber that took a wicked bounce over Warriors fullback Lance Hohaia, to chalk up the game's opening try.
A plain bad read in defence presented a wide running Pritchard with Penrith's second try, Gordon's conversion making it 14-nil to the Panthers with just a quarter of the game gone.
A rampant Panthers outfit continued to chance their arm in attack, putting it through several sets of hands in a fifty metre last tackle movement finished off by Luke Rooney, extending the Penrith lead to 18 points.
The New Zealanders finally got their offensive act together in the 35th minute, a clever grubber into the in-goal from dummy half Nathan Fien was pounced upon by Simon Mannering, Hohaia landing the conversion to close the gap to 18-6 and give the visitors a sniff.
The Kiwis big forwards were starting to make inroads, they rolled downfield and started to apply some real pressure, before halfback Grant Rovelli managed to stop his side's momentum in its tracks.
A woefully inept last tackle grubber from Rovelli was comfortably fielded by Pritchard, who released resident greyhound Michael Jennings on an eighty-metre sprint to the stripe that broke the Kiwi's spirits on the stroke of half time.
The second half started no better for the New Zealanders, Pritchard continued to terrorize the visitors’ left hand edge, going over for his second.
Gordon added the extras from the touchline to make it 28-6 with 35 minutes remaining.
A well-weighted grubber from Luke Lewis provided Gordon with his second four-pointer, with the flying winger converting his own try to make it 34-6.
Trent Waterhouse heaped more misery on the hapless Kiwis when he forced his way over from close range in the 54th minute, with Gordon's conversion bringing up 40 for the Panthers after just 55 minutes.
The New Zealanders gained some brief respite when Mannering ran into a yawning gap to bring up his second four pointer, before Ian Henderson forced his way over from close range, making it 40-16 with a quarter of an hour to play.
Jennings crossed for his second try in the 72nd minute, before Russell Packer handed the Warriors a consolation try in the 79th minute to round out the scoring.
