Cole's Finals Moment: Penrith's Unlikely Wildcard Before Perth Move

Jack Cole has waited four years for this. On Sunday, the 23-year-old five-eighth will run out for Penrith in a semi-final against Sydney, his first taste of NRL finals football. It will be only his fifth game of the season and his 22nd career appearance since debuting in 2022. By any measure, it is a late arrival to the biggest stage. But the timing, it turns out, may be exactly right.

Cole joined Penrith as a teenager and has spent most of his time there watching from the sidelines. Four consecutive Septembers he ran opposed sessions, helped prepare the team for their finals campaigns, and waited. The Panthers won grand finals during those years—part of the greatest dynasty in modern rugby league. Cole was part of the machinery that made it work, even if he rarely got to play. Soft tissue injuries interrupted his progress. Suspensions and demotions to reserve grade kept him out. He got starts here and there—the World Club Challenge against Wigan in 2024, a few games last season including a win over Cronulla in Las Vegas—but consistency eluded him. This year, as the season wore on, his opportunities dried up almost entirely.

Then Jack Cogger was suspended for three games on a high tackle charge, and Blaize Talagi was demoted to reserve grade. The door opened. Cole stepped through it and has played the last two matches as Penrith warmed up for the finals with back-to-back wins. He has combined well with Nathan Cleary, the best player in the world, who sits inside him in the five-eighth role. Cleary's instruction was simple: defend well, attack when you see it, keep it uncomplicated. Cole's job is to take pressure off Cleary when he can, move the ball quickly to the weapons on his left—centre Casey McLean and winger Thomas Jenkins—and talk constantly. Simple, yes. Easy, no.

What makes Cole's emergence significant is not just that he is finally getting his chance, but that he is getting it in a context where Penrith's coach Ivan Cleary has a documented pattern of shaking up his roster on the eve of finals to inject fresh energy. In 2021, Cleary benched backrower Viliame Kikau for Liam Martin in the final six games. The following year he shuffled his hookers—Api Koroisau and Mitch Kenny—for the three finals matches. In 2023, Cogger himself seized a bench utility spot for the preliminary final and grand final, playing a key role in Penrith's comeback against Brisbane. Paul Alamoti has been the late-season addition twice in the past two years, replacing established players and scoring crucial tries. If Cole performs well on Sunday, he could be this year's version of that strategic spark.

Cogger will be available again after his suspension ends, which means Cole's path forward is not guaranteed. He could remain in the starting side, or he could shift to a utility role covering centre. But Cole is not thinking that far ahead. He has been with Penrith since he was 15 years old—eight years total—and he is leaving at season's end to join the Perth Bears, where he hopes to play first grade every week. That move is what he signed up for. But right now, he is focused on Sunday.

"When it was first happening I was a bit sad because I only had six or seven games left," Cole said. "But now there's a job to do and I can't dwell on that. It won't benefit me or the team." He has learned patience over four years of waiting. He has learned to work his way back from injury and demotion. He has watched the greatest dynasty of modern times from close range and absorbed what it takes. Now, at the very end of his Panthers tenure, he gets to put that knowledge into practice when it matters most. This is what he waited for. This is what it is all about.