The 2022 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 2022 National Rugby League season in Australia. It was contested between the

Penrith Panthers The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Greater Western Sydney suburb of Penrith, New South Wales, Penrith that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL). The team is based west of the cen ...

and the

Parramatta Eels The Parramatta Eels are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL). The Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club was formed in 1947, and ...

on Sunday the 2nd of October at Accor Stadium in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

. Penrith, who were both the defending premiers and minor premiers, won the match 28–12 to claim their fourth premiership title, and their first back-to-back premierships in the club's 56-year history. Panthers fullback Dylan Edwards was awarded the Clive Churchill Medal for being judged as the

man of the match In team sport, a player of the match award (also known as man of the match or woman of the match) is often given to the most outstanding player in a particular match. This can be a player from either team, although the player is generally chose ...

. The match was preceded by the 2022 NRL State Championship and the 2022 NRL Women's Grand Final. The grand final was attended by 82,415 spectators, and was broadcast live throughout Australia by the

Nine Network Nine Network (stylised 9Network, and commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of the five main free-to-air television ...

Background

This was the first NRL grand final between the

and the

, and the second consecutive year that the grand final featured two Sydney-based clubs. The match-up between both clubs has long been regarded as the Western Sydney Derby, due to the long standing rivalry between the two clubs being closely located among Western Sydney. The Panthers, who became the first side since the

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm is a rugby league football club based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia that participates in the National Rugby League (NRL). The club plays its home games at AAMI Park, and wears a purple and navy blu ...

in 2018 to reach three consecutive grand finals, were aiming for a fourth premiership, after defeating

Canberra Raiders The Canberra Raiders are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the national capital city of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. They have competed in Australasia's elite rugby league competition, the National Rugb ...

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

Sydney Roosters Eastern Suburbs District Rugby League Football Club, known as the Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs (Sydney), Eastern Suburbs. The club competes in the National Rugby Lea ...

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

and

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney District Rugby League Football Club, also known as the South Sydney Rabbitohs, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra, New South Wales, Maroubra that competes in the Nat ...

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

. It was Ivan Cleary's fourth grand final appearance as a coach, after previously losing with the

New Zealand Warriors The Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as the Aucklan ...

against

Manly Sea Eagles The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Sydney's Northern Beaches. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL). The Manly club debuted in the 1947 New South Wales Rugby Football League seaso ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

, and losing with Penrith against

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

. Meanwhile, the Eels were aiming for their fifth premiership victory; their most recent being against

Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Belmore, a suburb in the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney. They compete in the NRL Telstra Premiership, as well as competitions facilitated by ...

in 1986. Their last grand final appearance was a defeat to the Melbourne Storm in

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

. It was Brad Arthur's first grand final appearance as a coach. The Panthers finished the 2022 regular season in first place after twenty wins and four losses, of which two were against the Eels. Parramatta finished fourth after sixteen wins and eight losses.

Route to the final

Penrith Panthers

The 2022 Penrith Panthers season was the 56th season in the club's history. Coached by Ivan Cleary and co-captained by Nathan Cleary and Isaah Yeo, the Panthers are competing in the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

's 2022 Telstra Premiership.

Parramatta Eels

The 2022 Parramatta Eels season was the 76th in the club's history. Coached by Brad Arthur and co-captained by Clinton Gutherson and Junior Paulo, they will compete in the

NRL The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

's 2022 Telstra Premiership. The season saw a club record membership tally of 34,264.

Pre-match

Team selection

Dylan Edwards, Stephen Crichton, Brian To'o, Jarome Luai, Nathan Cleary, Apisai Koroisau, James Fisher-Harris, Viliame Kikau, Liam Martin, Moses Leota and Isaah Yeo made their third-straight grand final appearance for Penrith, whilst Koroisau also played in the 2014 premiership decider for the

. Ryan Matterson and Bailey Simonsson were the only players for Parramatta to have played in prior grand finals; Matterson won for the

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

, while Simonsson played for the

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

Broadcasting

The match was broadcast live on the

and delayed on Fox League in Australia as well as on Sky Sport in New Zealand. Radio broadcasters included ABC,

Triple M Triple M is an Australian commercial radio network owned and operated by Southern Cross Austereo. The network consists of 45 radio stations with flagship stations broadcasting a mainstream/classic rock music format in Sydney, Melbourne, and B ...

, 2GB, SEN and Koori Radio.

Entertainment

On 23 September 2022, the pre-match entertainment acts for the grand final were announced. This included

Jimmy Barnes James Dixon Barnes ( Swan; born 28 April 1956) is an Australian rock singer. His career, both as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist with the rock band Cold Chisel, has made him one of the most popular and best-selling Australian music a ...

Mahalia Barnes Mahalia Violet Barnes (born 12 July 1982) is an Australian singer-songwriter, the daughter of Scottish-Australian rock singer Jimmy Barnes and Jane Mahoney. She began performing as part of children's pop group The Tin Lids with siblings, Eli ...

, A.Girl, Diesel, Josh Teskey, Emma Donovan, Sheldon Riley and

Bliss n Eso Bliss n Eso (formerly known as Bliss n' Esoterikizm) are an Australian hip hop trio based in Sydney. The group consists of emcees Bliss and Eso, and DJ Izm, and they are currently signed to Melbourne record label Illusive Sounds, and are manag ...

. The Australian national anthem was performed by Alinta Chidzey.

Officiating

Ashley Klein refereed the match, his second NRL grand final. Grant Atkins was the senior review official, and Phil Henderson and Drew Oultram were the touch judges. Gerard Sutton was the standby referee and David Munro the standby touch judge.

Attendance

The 2022 Grand Final was the first since the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

to have no crowd restrictions. On 27 September 2022, the match was sold out.

Curtain-raiser matches

Curtain-raiser matches on the day were the NRL State Championship between the

Norths Devils The Northern Suburbs Devils, or North Brisbane Devils, or often simply referred to as Norths for short, are a rugby league club representing the northern suburbs of Brisbane, Australia. The team colours are sky blue, navy blue and gold. They pl ...

and the

, and NRLW Grand Final between the

Newcastle Knights The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional rugby league team based in Newcastle, New South Wales that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, the Knights joined the top-tier competition in New ...

and the

. Both were shown live on the

in Australia.

Match

Statistics

Penrith Panthers: * Most runs: 28 – Dylan Edwards * Most running metres: 299 – Brian To'o * Most line breaks: 3 – Brian To'o * Most tackles: 45 – Liam Martin * Most missed tackles: 5 – Liam Martin * Most errors: 3 – Stephen Crichton Parramatta Eels: * Most runs: 20 – ** Clinton Gutherson ** Dylan Brown ** Ryan Matterson * Most running metres: 167 – Clinton Gutherson * Most line breaks: 1 – ** Clinton Gutherson ** Maika Sivo ** Dylan Brown * Most tackles: 56 – Reed Mahoney * Most missed tackles: 11 – Isaiah Papali'i * Most errors: 3 – ** Clinton Gutherson ** Waqa Blake

Post-match

Parramatta forward Ryan Matterson was charged by the match review with a grade one crusher tackle against Dylan Edwards. Matterson was criticised after taking an early guilty plea and electing to be suspended for three matches instead of taking a $4,000 fine. Matterson defended his decision telling reporters "I just feel that $4000 is pretty hefty considering I have already paid close to $4000 in fines this year for things that are absurd", with the forward also suggesting that the charge was not warranted. Penrith players were criticised for their celebrations after their victory, with Sydney media identities outspoken against the way they celebrated. Jarome Luai came under scrutiny for a social media post that some found offensive. Former Penrith captain Greg Alexander and coach Ivan Cleary defended the players against the criticism. Both grand final teams' players featured in squads selected for the

2021 Rugby League World Cup The 2021 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC2021) was a collection of world cups in the sport of rugby league, held in England from 15 October to 19 November 2022. England won hosting rights for the competition on 27 October 2016. The bid received � ...

to be played in October–November 2022. Ten Panthers players were selected with the greatest representation (5) to play for

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

. Parramatta had also had ten players selected, with the greatest representation (3) to play for

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. As premiership winners, Penrith earned the right to play in the World Club Challenge against 2022 Super League Grand Final winners St Helens. The match was played on 18 February 2023 at BlueBet Stadium.

Opening Matches

Two opening matches were played on the ground prior to the grand final: the NRL State Championship and NRL Women's Grand Final. Both matches were broadcast live throughout Australia by the

NRL State Championship

NRL Women's Premiership Grand Final

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:NRL Grand Final

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North Ameri ...

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

October 2022 sports events in Australia Rugby league in Sydney Penrith Panthers matches Parramatta Eels matches