WHEN injury took a heavy toll on the Penrith Panthers late last season, coach Ivan Cleary had no option but to throw a number of young players a chance in the NRL.

Now he has those same players in his side because they have earned their spot.

When Cleary named his squad for tomorrow’s match against the Gold Coast Titans at Carrington Park, he made no alterations to the line-up which beat Canterbury 24-18 in round one.

That squad included NRL debutant George Jennings on the wing and others to graduate from Penrith’s junior ranks like Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Reagan Campbell-Gillard and Bryce Cartwright.

They were all part of the Penrith side which won the 2013 Holden Cup.

“It’s just exciting to have those boys in. We had four locals out of our winning NYC [National Youth Competition] team from two years ago. [And] they’re all locals. It’s our mandate at the club to bring players through our system,” Cleary said. 

“We’re still a developing team. We had a lot of players there either in their first year or second year of first grade. Matt Moylan’s now becoming almost a senior member of our team, and it’s only his third year of first grade. That’s how we are.”

One of Panthers’ more experienced players, five-eighth Jamie Soward, knows the young talents will play a key role in his side’s chances this year.

“More or less you’ll probably have seen them, but they’ve all matured a year, they’ve all grown another year,” he said.

“For us it is going to be about consistency early in the year then trying to get back to where we were last year, hopefully a better result.”

Consistency in terms of a line-up is something that the Panthers will have tomorrow. 

Moylan will again start as fullback while Jennings and Watene-Zelezniak, who scored three tries between them against the Bulldogs, will be a danger on the wings.

It was Moylan and Watene-Zelezniak who combined for the Panthers’ opening try at Carrington Park last July.

Penrith’s strength and conditioning coach Ronnie Palmer was happy to see the club’s emerging stars retain their place in Cleary’s squad.

“It has been an exciting start to the season, last week winning all three grades, we couldn’t have asked for a better start,” he said.

“Some of the younger brigade came through amazingly well, great performances by George Jennings and Dallin. Some of the others young fellahs were young Peach [Tyrone Peachey] and young Carty and all of them played exceptionally well.

“To form a very, very strong bench that came on and made the difference the other day, [this week] we have Tyrone Peachey, Jeremy Latimore, we’ve got Reagan Campbell-Gillard and Bryce Cartwright.”

PENRITH PANTHERS: 1 Matt Moylan, 2 George Jennings, 3 Dean Whare, 4 Jamal Idris, 5 Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, 6 Jamie Soward, 7 Peter Wallace, 8 Sam McKendry, 9 James Segeyaro, 10 Brent Kite, 11 Sika Manu, 12 Lewis Brown, 13 Elijah Taylor, 14 Tyrone Peachey, 15 Jeremy Latimore, 16 Reagan Campbell-Gillard, 17 Bryce Cartwright, 18 Isaah Yeo.