Penrith unfazed by pre-season loss

Penrith insist their fans shouldn't be concerned by their shock trial loss to a weakened Canterbury team, just two weeks out from the start of the NRL season.

The near-full strength Panthers were beaten 24-10 on Saturday night by a second-string Bulldogs side, after having previously beaten the Sydney Roosters last week.

Penrith, who have made the finals for the past two seasons and still have one of the best rosters in the competition, will host the seemingly in-form Parramatta in round one, who easily accounted for Newcastle in their last trial.

But representative prop Reagan Campbell-Gillard told Fox League that Penrith aren't letting the loss get to them.

"It doesn't look good but we're not stressed," Campbell-Gillard said.

"There's definitely no concerns. We had a good hit out, our first 25 minutes we were looking really good but obviously fell off in that first half.

"We've got a few things we want to work on and a few system changes. There's no excuse for failing."

The defeat came at the end of a difficult pre-season for the Panthers, who have had star local juniors Matt Moylan and Bryce Cartwright leave the club.

Moylan's departure came after he sat out last year's finals for personal reasons, while it's understood Cartwright was keen to leave Sydney following a drama-filled 2017.

Back-rower Trent Merrin admitted the pair hadn't responded as well to Anthony Griffin since his arrival at the end of 2015, but denied there were problems between the players and coaching staff.

"I know local players have left the club and they've gone elsewhere but that wasn't due to - as far as we know - the coaching side of things" Merrin said.

"When a new coach comes into a system when you're used to something else for so long (and so) not every player is going to get the responses that they want from that coach.

"Obviously we had two players there who probably didn't respond to a new coach coming on board, and they've gone elsewhere."