Considering he throws the most important pass at Penrith, hooker Mitch Kenny can appreciate the irony.
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Kenny → consider → irony
“That first year of NRL, I couldn’t really pass left to right at all … it might be an issue again, actually,” he grins, “I’ve missed a lot of footy lately.”
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I → pass → footy
Kenny’s importance to the Panthers’ premiership-winning machine has grown with every passing year.
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importance → win → year
Not least because in July he was the first of the club’s high-profile off-contract list to re-sign, on a four-year deal worth about $3 million.
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he → re → deal
But also because the once ungainly lock-turned-rake now consistently delivers Nathan Cleary some of the most reliable dummy-half service in the NRL.
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lock → turn → NRL
The best example is the 20-metre pass Kenny served his halfback against the Titans, when Penrith needed a two-point field goal with 90 seconds to play in August 2025.
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Penrith → serve → August
Kenny looked up, realised Cleary was nowhere near where he had expected, yet still nailed the left-to-right pass that was well beyond him when he first came into first grade in 2019.
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he → look → 2019
That’s how you learn a pretty fundamental skill like that,” Kenny says.
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Kenny → ’ → that
“When I came into the NRL in 2019, we had a bunch of injuries and suspensions to some really good hookers like Wayde Egan and Sione Katoa, and ‘Wal’ [former Panthers playmaker turned head coach-in-waiting Peter Wallace] had just retired, too.
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Wal → come → waiting
“So it meant I got my opportunity …
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I → mean → opportunity
I was playing NRL and learning how to play hooker on the fly, but that’s not as dire as it sounds because I had all those guys and Kevin Kingston on our staff to learn and bounce off.
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I → play → staff
“I didn’t know much and, like I said, I didn’t have a left-to-right pass in the toolkit.
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I → know → toolkit
But Cameron Ciraldo is someone I need to credit as well because he spent a lot of time working with me.
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he → need → me
Cam’s a pretty detailed guy and we’d go over a lot of clips, looking at someone like Aaron Smith from the All Blacks, how his passing technique could help me really build my own game from the ground up.
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me → ’ → ground
“I’d look at guys around the NRL, too, who can really zing the ball around.
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who → look → ball
I’m not saying that’s me now, and I don’t think it is.
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it → say → ?
But it is something I work hard at.
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I → work → ?
Graft and grind will always remain the 28-year-old’s bread and butter, even if he did delay his return from a badly broken leg this year by a couple of weeks because he pushed his training too hard too early.
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he → remain → training
Come kick-off in Sunday afternoon’s grand final qualifier against the resurgent Knights, Kenny will also have a wonderfully quirky reminder of his formative years as Penrith’s groundskeeper lurking across halfway.
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Kenny → Come → halfway
Explosive Newcastle back-rower Francis Manuleleua looms as a potential gamebreaker for the visiting outsiders at CommBank Stadium.
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Manuleleua → loom → Stadium
He’s also treading the same first-grade path Kenny once took, having taken on the lawnmowing gig when he was coming through Penrith’s lower grades before finding his way up the F1.
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he → tread → F1
But just as Kenny has added a long left-to-right pass since his early grass-cutting days, his Panthers teammates speak glowingly of the guile he has slowly but surely added to his game since succeeding Api Koroisau as starting hooker in 2023.
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he → add → 2023
Cleary’s praise is most noteworthy when he talks of the most famous play in his career to date – the try that sealed the greatest grand final comeback in history.
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that → talk → history
“Mitch’s deception is something that is really underrated in the try,” Cleary told this masthead a year after he broke Broncos hearts, and a few seconds after Kenny had swivelled his head left and right several times, dummied once and only then found his halfback.
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Kenny → underrate → halfback
“He’s just as much to credit for that try as I am.”
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I → ’ → try
Kenny, naturally, appreciates the sentiment from the game’s best player.
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Kenny → appreciate → player
“It’s nice to hear that from Nath, but he did the heavy lifting there,” he says.
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he → ’ → lifting
“I wouldn’t say that was Api-esque or anything.
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that → say → ?
In those situations, you try and do a little something and give a bloke like Nath the ball with as much time as possible for him to do the rest.
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him → try → rest
“The subtleties and deception of playing hooker, you pick up a lot of that by watching and learning from guys like Api, especially being around them at training, and then by putting it into practice over the years.
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you → play → years
From there it’s like anything I guess, hours of practice and game time.
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I → ’ → practice
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News → send → sport
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