Penrith Panthers assistant trainer Matt Adamson has been registered by the Panthers and Matt Elliott has hinted he may use the former Panther and Raider in the 2007 team lineup.
It would be a massive case of ‘back to the future’ – with Adamson being involved in the last clean out at Penrith many years ago. Back in those days, the stories were legendary with former Panthers boss Roger Cowan allegedly handing out redundancy notices to players as they left training. The former Panthers boss ruled with an iron first, and players such as Adamson were pushed out of the club in hard times.
After spending time in the UK Super League, Matt Adamson played a season at the Canberra Raiders under Elliott and has reportedly been training with the Panthers first grade squad for some time in 2007. His fitness and commitment would not be questioned, his durablility would be the only factor – with the big forward having plenty of knee and injury problems during his latter career.
A guy like Matt Adamson would certainly give the Panthers the experience and direction they need. Even limited game time for Matt Adamson would give coach Elliott a team man capable of carrying out instructions and leading by example.
With so many middle aged NRL players heading to the UK Super League, it would certainly be refreshing to see an elder statesmen in the NRL and show his bag of tricks to the kids.