PENRITH coach Anthony Griffin claims that stopping red-hot Canberra dummy-half Josh Hodgson will go a long way to deciding the outcome of today’s round nine NRL clash at Carrington Park.

Speaking after yesterday’s captain’s training run, the Panthers mentor said that limiting Hodgson’s opportunities will be paramount in ensuring that the Raiders don’t repeat the blistering effort they produced against the Tigers last weekend.

On that occasion, Canberra thrilled their home crowd in destroying Wests 60-6 with Hodgson named the best on ground.

“He is the focal point of their attack and obviously a real key to steering them around the park,” Griffin said.

“Their attack last weekend was really good, any team that can rack up 60 points in 80 minutes deserves for us to pay them a lot of respect.

“But our team is pretty balanced, we’ve been going okay for the last month of football regardless of the results.”

Penrith were stung during the build up to today’s game by the news that star three-quarter Dean Whare would miss the rest of the season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury. 

But they will be boosted by the return of hooker James Segeyaro.

He hasn’t played since round one due to a broken arm suffered in a 30-22 loss to the Raiders.

Since then, the Panthers have won three and lost four without the Papua New Guinea rake, but their biggest defeat was by just five points against the North Queensland Cowboys.

They have knocked off Brisbane in that period, and given the general consensus that the Broncos and Cowboys are a step or two ahead of the rest of the competition, Penrith’s form holds up.

“It is unfortunate news about Whare, but the guys coming in have all done the job,” the coach said.

“We’ve done a good job as a team just by being consistent so far this season. Unfortunately there have been a couple of tight ones that we haven’t closed out.

“But the ladder will take care of itself if we’re playing good football.

“It is terrible for Dean to do his ACL, with Waqa Blake out as well it has stretched us, but Isaah Yeo does a good job in there at wing or centre.

“From a team point of view, James [Segeyaro] has to play his role, he’s missed eight weeks of footy so he has to get some miles in his legs. We’ll see how long he can go, it would be a tough ask for him to play 80 minutes in his first match back.”

Today’s match takes on extra significance given that both sides are part of a 10-team group separated by just four points on the ladder and could well be competing with one another for a finals position come the end of the regular season.

Griffin said that he agrees to some extent with the argument that the Broncos and Cowboys are clear competition favourites but it is more than a two-horse race.

He added that he hasn’t paid too much attention to the other sides.

“It is probably a bit closer than what you think, the Sharks are a very good side at the moment,” he said.

“But the Cowboys and Broncos, they played one another in a grand final and have basically retained exactly the same sides, so that helps them. We try not to look too much sideways at what the other teams are doing though.”

Today’s match kicks off at 3pm while the under 20s get underway at 10.40am. Gates at Carrington Park open at 10am.