KEY POINTS:
Kiwis second rower Frank Pritchard will be having an MRI scan on his damaged shoulder while his Panthers teammates prepare for the game against the Warriors on Sunday. The loser will be out of the finals race.
Pritchard has been playing on with the injury for several weeks but has no chance of travelling. The scan will determine if the shoulder can be fixed without invasive surgery or whether he faces a full reconstruction.
"Either way, he is gone for the season," said club spokesman Andrew Leeds.
And the World Cup.
The club yesterday denied accusations Pritchard had refused to return to the field after coming off favouring the shoulder during the 40-6 loss to the Melbourne Storm on Monday night.
The Fox Sports "sideline eye" reporter said he believed trainers checked the injury and told Pritchard it wasn't bad enough to keep him off. The Panthers yesterday said that was rubbish, backing up coach Matthew Elliott's comments post-match. "Physically, he wasn't right to go. If he went back on the field he was only going to let somebody down," Elliot said. "To send him back on when the game wasn't on the line would have been silly of me as a coach."
Rumour abounds that Pritchard, who has repeatedly been denied a release from the last two years of his contract, is talking to Brian McClennan's Leeds club and will continue to seek an out so he can shift to Super League.
The Panthers coach is under pressure after they finished last in 2007, started poorly in 2008 and dropped to their biggest-ever hiding at the hands of Canberra, who Elliot left after 2006 supposedly because he wasn't convinced they had the talent for success.
Hot tip to replace him is former Warriors coach Daniel Anderson who finishes with St Helens at the end of this season. The Panthers sit on 25 points, one behind the Warriors and others and must win at Mt Smart to have any hope of making the finals..
After losing to St George last Sunday the Warriors must also now win their last two. If they finish equal with other sides on 28 competition points they will miss out due to their poor points differential.
The Warriors have tackling machine Micheal Luck back after shoulder surgery.
The Panthers have shifted Matt Bell up from the bench to start in place of Pritchard, but if they play as badly in Auckland as they did when losing to the Storm, the Warriors will wipe the floor with them. That is so long as the Warriors team that turns out isn't the one that turned out against South Sydney.
Mt Smart Stadium, Sunday 4pm Wade McKinnon
WARRIORS
Malo Solomona
Brent Tate
Jerome Ropati
Manu Vatuvei
Michael Witt
Nathan Fien
Ruben Wiki
Ian Henderson
Steve Price (c)
Simon Mannering
Ben Matulino
Micheal Luck
PENRITH
Rhys Wesser
Luke Rooney
Brad Tighe
Michael Jennings
Michael Gordon
Maurice Blair
Luke Lewis
Tony Puletua
Luke Priddis
Petero Civoniceva (c)
Matthew Bell
Trent Waterhouse
Nathan Smith
Warriors: from Lance Hohaia, Wairangi Koopu, Sam Rapira, Logan Swann, Evarn Tuimavave.
Penrith: from Daniel Penese, Adam Woolnough, Frank Puletua, Paul Aiton, Jarrod Sammut, Josh Bateman.
