James Maloney's hopes of an Origin recall appear to be over with the Panthers five-eighth set to miss a last audition against rivals Paramatta on Friday night after accepting a one-match ban.
Maloney was cited for a late hit on Warriors playmaker Kodi Nikorima during Friday night's embarrassing 30-10 hiding at Panthers Stadium.
After successfully fighting a charge for a chicken wing on Canberra's John Bateman in the previous week, Maloney opted to cop the suspension for his second incident in a fortnight.
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It's only Maloney's poor record that will keep him off the pitch, with 20 percent loading from a previous similar incident in the last two years.
SUSPENDED 🙅🏽♂️ James Maloney has entered an early guilty plea to a dangerous contact charge and will miss Thursday's clash with Parramatta.#pantherpride 🐾 pic.twitter.com/hgBOKwuv5u
— Penrith Panthers (@PenrithPanthers) May 19, 2019
It leaves Brad Fittler with ten weeks of horrible form to judge his selection chances, while partner Nathan Cleary will have one final crack to prove himself and lift Penrith off the bottom of the table.
Fittler defended Cleary's performance on the weekend despite the horrendous scoreline, putting blame on the club's forward pack as a reason for the halfback's slow start.
‘’If you’re a half coming from a team where your forwards aren’t having a go then you’re going to get no good footy,’’ Fittler told Triple M.
‘’If you have a look at his stats, he had 20 runs, the most runs in the whole team, he ran for more metres than any other forward in his team bar James Tamou. He made 20-odd tackles, missed two – one was crucial on Kodi Nikorima when he took a dummy – but he’s outplaying every one of his forwards.
‘’You can take that how you like…because as a half, and I was a half, if you’re forwards aren’t absolutely ripping – I think Newcastle are a great example with Mitchell Pearce and Kalyn Ponga – if you’re forwards aren’t ripping in then you can’t do anything.
‘’If you look at the Nathan Cleary situation, what he’s trying to do is play like a forward, which isn’t helping them but it is taking nothing away from his character.’’
Fittler's comments were in response to calls from South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett to drop the incumbent pairing, possibly directing Fittler to look at the talents at Redfern in Adam Reynolds and Cody Walker.
“In all fairness to everybody, and I’ll say what no one else wants to say, they cannot pick the half-back and five-eighth from last year,'' he said.
“Now what they do after that I don’t know but they’re key players in that club (Penrith) and the club’s not playing well, and they’re not playing well.
“And there’s too many quality players in this competition that happen to wear NSW jerseys for those guys to have to be picked.”
If Maloney is shown the axe, it will likely end his Origin career with an eventual move to the Super League in his sights.
There are rumours Penrith are entertaining the idea of allowing Maloney to walk with a year remaining on his deal.
He has played a total of 12 games for his state, winning his first Origin series last year, while adding three Kangaroos appearances to his resume.
