Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has praised the professionalism of Sean O'Sullivan after the replacement halfback played a starring role in their season-opening win over Manly on Thursday night.
With superstar playmaker Nathan Cleary ruled out for the first few matches as he recovers from shoulder surgery, O'Sullivan, playing at his fourth NRL club, was called on to start in the number seven jersey.
Playing in his 22nd first-grade match, the 23-year-old finished with two try assists and 385 kicking metres in a very solid display at Panthers Stadium.
After the match, coach Cleary said O'Sullivan, a local junior, has impressed since returning to Penrith.
"I'm really happy for him," he told reporters.
"He's been in a few different systems. He's a real footy head, loves the game, loves learning.
"He came back here and he's just done everything we've asked of him.
"Trained really well and he played like he prepared. He was outstanding right throughout the 80 minutes."
After the match, O'Sullivan revealed he'd known about Nathan Cleary's unavailability for some time but was instructed to keep it secret, even from his own family.
"Just shows his commitment to the team and the club that he kept it in house," Cleary said.
"I was really happy for him, I could see that he was nervous the last couple of days, all eyes were going to be on him but he just did what he was good at and that's all we asked of him.
"Although Nathan's trained a lot at halfback, Sully's got plenty of reps in that spot too.
"He had prepared for this game for the last three months... he's going to have to back it up again next week."
Penrith captain Isaah Yeo, who was also influential through the middle, said O'Sullivan was able to bring out the best in representative five-eighth Jarome Luai.
"I thought he was really good. Him being an out-and-out half allows [Luai] to stick to his job, what he does so well," Yeo said.
"I thought both of them worked really well together. We had a plan, Sully executed that really well which allowed [Luai] to play on the front foot."
The Panthers ran out comfortable 28-6 winners to kick off their premiership defence in style.
While the final score was convincing, there was some unease around the place after the home side had two tries chalked off for obstruction in the opening stages of the contest.
Cleary, unsurprisingly, disagreed with the bunker's decisions.
"The first one, I thought that was a misread by Parker. If the outside guy misreads, that nullifies the obstruction," he said.
As for the second one which was disallowed after Luai was deemed to have got in the road of the defenders as Brian To'o weaved his way over the line: "Someone's got to be obstructed, I would have thought.
"I'll leave it at that."
