Roosters late show stuns Panthers

v BYE

Roosters have scored 28 unanswered points in the second half to become Holden Cup premiers 30-28 over Penrith Panthers. 

For a long time in this contest, it looked a procession for the Panthers to be crowned Premiers added to their Minor Premiership. They were 28-6 up and cruising against a busted up Roosters side. 

Roosters continued to fight despite losing hooker Grant Garvey in the first half - they piled on 28 points with a late Johnny Tuivasa-Sheck runaway try sealing a first premiership for the team from Bondi.

In the first forty though, it was all Penrith. Corey Waddell played a starring role - he produced a magical ball to put Christian Crighton over and scored one of his own. Panthers were making metres easy through the middle men and it reflected in the try-scorers. 

Kaide Ellis and Wayde Egan produced close range efforts as they score started to blow out. It was a long way from the opening ten minutes where the Roosters had their only lead of the first half. 

A nice link play found Paul Momirovski in some space, he got it to Joseph Manu who evaded the defenders and opened the scoring. The Bondi side were getting into position in the first stanza but couldn't keep control of the ball. 

They were duly punished by an experienced Panthers side, as Tyrone May ran the show in the sunshine of ANZ Stadium. Braidon Burns added a four-pointer on his final appearance for the Panthers as he stood up his defender as the Panthers just seemed too big, too strong for the battling Roosters. 

Roosters needed to be first on the scoreboard, and duly obliged as Jack Gibson medalist Nat Butcher nudged his way across. From there, all the momentum was with the red, white and blues as they broke the line at will. 

Joseph Manu added a second in the comeback, alongside Sitili Tupouniua crashing over to reduce the deficit to four. As the time ticked away, Bernard Lewis played at a Panthers kick before he shovelled it to Tuivasa-Sheck to complete the fairytale.