Panthers coach Anthony Griffin is adamant the Matt Moylan saga engulfing his club played no part in Penrith's 28-12 hammering by Manly on Saturday, which ensured both teams would be playing finals football next week.
Moylan is reportedly unsettled at Penrith, and due to meet with club officials on Monday to discuss his future at the foot of the mountains, where he is signed until the end of 2021.
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Manly smash Penrith to make finals
The Sea Eagles soar to a 28-12 victory over the Panthers to secure their place in the eight.
The fullback-turned-five-eighth sat out Saturday's loss at Lottoland, battling the hamstring problem which led to him meeting Griffin and general manager Phil Gould this week about his rehabilitation of the injury. Neither he, or fullback Dylan Edwards, are guaranteed to be fit for next weekend's elimination final against Manly or Cronulla either.
Griffin was tight-lipped on the Moylan situation following the Manly game.
"It didn't have any part in our preparation," Griffin said.
"I won't be commenting on what's been in the media, and we'll deal with that in house."
Manly's win means ninth-placed St George Illawarra will leapfrog North Queensland into the top eight, should they beat Canterbury on Sunday.
Penrith were rudderless in attack on Saturday without Moylan, and were never in the contest against a fired-up Manly who needed to win to secure a return to finals football.
The Panthers' place in the top eight also wasn't sealed going into the match - they needed to avoid a 37-point loss to ensure they would still be around next weekend and they managed to do so, albeit very unconvincingly.
Tom Trbojevic's try early in the second half and a Curtis Sironen four-pointer soon after extended the home side's lead to 28-0 before Penrith finally tightened up and established a foothold in the game.
Late tries to Tyrone May and Reagan Campbell-Gillard kept Penrith safe, but it means they limp into the finals series on the back of two straight losses.
"We'll go down and have a look at that and regroup tomorrow," Griffin said.
"I'll go back and have a look at the tape and our preparation but it didn't feel like that [was going to happen] coming into the game. We had a really good week at training.
"Everything they did for 60 minutes was just faster and quicker and harder than what we were doing. It wasn't good, we just got out-enthused, they were more physical and energetic than us for most of the night and we paid the price."
By contrast, Manly now surge into a home final at Allianz Stadium, most likely to be played on Saturday, off the back of two straight wins and one of their best performances of the season.
That will either be against St George Illawarra, or Penrith.
"Those sorts of performances will hold us in good stead for whoever we play next week, if we turn up with that attitude again, and we will, we'll be okay," Manly coach Trent Barrett said.
"Our goal was to make the semi-finals. We have, but we don't want to go out the back door either."
Barrett said he was confident his side had ironed out the kinks from recent losses to the lowly Wests Tigers and Canterbury.
"Everyone was quick to jump on our form," Barrett said.
"We've won seven out of 13 the first half of the year and we've won seven out of 13 for the second half of the year. We've never lost more than two games in a row.
"Everyone was quick to say we were an inconsistent side. There's 10 more inconsistent sides behind us.
"That irked me a little bit but we're there now and we have a real opportunity to do something special as a team. That's why it's so satisfying to finish the season where we have because we've copped some through the year."
Manly had this game wrapped up by half-time when they led 16-0 after tries to Brian Kelly, Daly Cherry-Evans and Jake Trbojevic.
Kelly played arguably his best game for the club, and proved a huge handful for Panthers centre Waqa Blake, who seemed to be carrying a shoulder injury throughout.
Griffin switched his back-line midway through the first half, moving Blake to the wing outside Dean Whare, with Dallin Watene-Zelezniak to fullback, but the damage was irreparable by that stage.
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