Penrith Panthers vs Cronulla Sharks Prediction: Champs to strut their stuff in Las Vegas

Rugby league’s big day out in Las Vegas finishes up when the NRL champion Penrith Panthers meet the Cronulla Sharks at the Allegiant Stadium in Sin City (04:30 Sunday GMT, 20:30 Saturday local - live on Sky Sports Action).

The Panthers’ quest for a fifth straight Premiership begins against a Sharks outfit they saw off in last year’s preliminary final. Below are my Penrith Panthers vs Cronulla Sharks predictions, together with the full team news and Betfred’s match odds.

Penrith Panthers vs Cronulla Sharks Odds

Nobody will be expecting the Panthers to be odds against for any matches this side of the finals, and they’re not here. The Premiers are 4/6 for the win in Vegas, implying a 60% chance of Ivan Cleary and his team getting their title defence off to the perfect start.

Craig Fitzgibbon’s Sharks can be backed at 13/10 for the win in 80 minutes, while it’s 18/1 for the scores to be deadlocked after the two regulation periods.

The oddsmakers at Betfred have little between the sides though, with the standard two-way handicap marked at 2.5 points in favour of the Sharks. The Panthers are a 10/11 pick to overcome the disadvantage, with Cronulla 5/6 for the win including the extra edge.

Team News

The champs headed into the off-season bruised and battered, but they return to competitive action almost fully repaired. Liam Martin, Dylan Edwards and superstar scrum-half Nathan Cleary have all recovered after operations in the months since their Grand Final win in October.

One man who does miss out, though, is Brian To’o, who has a hamstring complaint. Casey McLean will start on the wing in his absence.

In the pack, there’s no James Fisher-Harris after his move to the New Zealand Warriors, so Lindsay Smith steps up.

Rugby League Odds

The Sharks start the new season without Sione Katoa, who has a shoulder injury, so Sam Stonestreet gets the number-two shirt.

A big Cronulla pack has a new face in the shape of Addin Fonua-Blake, another former Warrior, while Jesse Ramien comes back into the centres after an ankle injury kept him out of the season-ending defeat to the Panthers when they last met in September.

Panthers by 13+ points @ 5/2

After stringing together eight wins to begin their title defence in 2022, the Panthers have actually got off to disappointing starts in their last two campaigns. In both ’23 and ’24 they were losers on opening night and were also sent packing in World Club Challenge fixtures.

There were back-to-back 13-12 defeats to St Helens and Brisbane Broncos two years ago, and 12 months later a controversial 16-12 reverse against the Wigan Warriors preceded an 8-0 shutout loss against the Melbourne Storm in their opening NRL contest.

So while you might think I’m building a case for a Sharks win with those recollections, I just think they will add fuel to the fire when Ivan Cleary delivers his big pre-game messages.

The Panthers are just too good to keep getting it wrong on day one, and I think they’ll want to put on a show against a dangerous Cronulla outfit. Their last two regular-season clashes – and three of the last four – have ended in one-sided shutout Penrith wins, and I can see this one being of a similar ilk.

The 5/2 odds at an implied 28.6% are generous on reflection of recent history.

Panthers to win both halves @ 5/2

Even accounting for the preliminary final last season which finished 26-6 in the Panthers’ favour, the Sharks just don’t seem to be able to gain a foothold against the dominant force of the modern era in Australia.

I just can’t see the differing backdrop in Las Vegas altering the general flow of this contest, and the 5/2 on offer for Penrith to build a first-half lead and keep adding looks good to me.

You can read all our latest Rugby League Betting Tips at our dedicated Betfred Insights Rugby League content hub.