Penrith Hotels

The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football team based in Penrith, New South Wales. The Panthers compete in the National Rugby League premiership, the top rugby league football competition in Australasia. Based 55 km west of the centre of Sydney and at the foot of the Blue Mountains, the Panthers were admitted to the New South Wales Rugby League competition in 1967, predecessor of the Australian Rugby League and the current NRL competition. Penrith struggled for almost twenty years before finally reaching their first finals series in 1985. The club achieved its first Grand Final appearance in 1990 but were beaten by the Canberra Raiders . The following year the Panthers met the Raiders again in the 1991 Grand Final, this time winning the game . Penrith's most recent premiership achievement was over the Sydney Roosters in the 2003 Grand Final where Penrith were considered 'under dogs' but came out on top with a 18-6 victory. Varied Penrith teams had played for many years between 1912 and 1966 in the Western Districts League under the control of the Western Suburbs RLFC, in the Parramatta competition after Parramatta was admitted to the NSWRL in 1947, and also in a second-tier Sydney competition introduced by the NSWRL in 1962. By this time a single top level rugby league team had emerged in the Penrith area and in 1964 they became known as the Penrith Panthers. The Panther had been chosen as the Penrith emblem after a public competition won by a graphic artist from Emu Plains named Deidre Copeland.