Des Hasler celebrated his 350th game as coach but someone forgot to invite Canterbury to the party, with the Bulldogs crashing to their equal-heaviest defeat under their boss on Sunday.
A listless Bulldogs were wiped out 38-0 by a relentless Penrith side at ANZ Stadium, extending their losing streak to four and re-igniting questions over their premiership ambitions.
"I don't think we got through our first set and our discipline as far as penalties are concerned in the wrong part of the field position is also a lot to be desired," Hasler said after the loss.
"Unfortunately, coupled with that, I thought some of our options, some really bad poor defensive lapses, particularly some one on one tackles which is unlike us."
While the Bulldogs were invisible, the Panthers were everywhere and their mid-season resurgence is now in full swing after extending their winning streak to three.
A month after dropping to second last spot, the Panthers turned in arguably their most impressive effort of the season to inject new life into their premiership tilt.
Replacement hooker Mitch Rein scored twice in his first appearance of the season, while skipper Matt Moylan made a strong first impression at five-eighth.
Winger Josh Mansour also made a successful return from a knee reconstruction, racking up a game-high 195 metres and adding a try on fulltime for good measure.
Penrith coach Anthony Griffin praised the performance of his captain post-game, singling out a defensive play in the second set of the match when he forced an error from Kerrod Holland.
"I thought his first play of the game defensively set the tone for the team," he said.
"For the day we had a focus about coming here and being able to do a job for 80 minutes defensively. For the team to see their captain fly out of the line like that and get an error in the first set, that set the tone."
For the Bulldogs, who crashed to their fourth straight defeat, their frustrations reached a flashpoint in the second half when Craig Garvey was sin-binned for punching.
In front of a crowd of 11,232, the Panthers led 16-0 at halftime and then ruthlessly piled on the points through Waqa Blake, Nathan Cleary, Rein and Mansour in the second half.
The Bulldogs, who were without captain James Graham and Brett Morris, simply had no answer for the Panthers' speed at the ruck, which resulted in a 9-1 linebreak count.
By halftime, the Panthers held a three-try lead on the back of a dominant performance in the middle of the field, Mansour racking up 142 metres alone in the first period.
They were helped by an ill-disciplined Bulldogs outfit that completed just over half their sets compared to the Panthers' 20 of 21, and missed 21 tackles to Penrith's seven.
Corey Harawira-Naera came up with first points from close range, followed in similar fashion by Rein from dummy-half, before Moylan made it 16-0 on the break.
