Penrith coach Matthew Elliott shelved conservatism to heap praise on his players after they bucked the Monday night NRL hoodoo to beat Wests Tigers 42-22 at CUA Stadium on Saturday night.

The Panthers became the first side this season to win coming off a Monday night game, but only after surviving a late Tigers onslaught when fatigue threatened to rob them of a deserved two competition points.

The visitors locked it up at 22-all with 17 minutes remaining before the Panthers found life and then some, piling on three tries over the final eight minutes to make it eight wins from the last nine contests between the sides.

It was enough to have Elliott gushing. "I guess what the coach should do now is be pretty cool and talk about what we need to do, all that stuff that bores you guys to tears, but I'm just over the moon for them," Elliott said.

"It's such a pleasure to work with these guys and I'm excited - I'm excited because we're starting to get some rewards for the hard work we're putting in.

"There was a bit of fatigue out on the park tonight ... I saw plenty of Monday night out there tonight.

"While our execution was down our character and our commitment for each other was there in bucketloads." The Tigers were left seeing red, not at their own ineptness in defence, but a 9-2 penalty count which they claim gave them no hope of victory.

"We got back to 22-all late in the game and to finish with that scoreline then is very, very disappointing," Tigers coach Tim Sheens said.

"Obviously we've got an issue with our discipline with a 9-2 penalty count ... we've got some issues obviously with those two particular referees.

"I'm not blaming them, I'm just saying we've got some issues." Either way, you're not going to win many games in the NRL when you let in six tries.

For the second straight week the Tigers were down 12-0 inside ten minutes, and for the second straight week they fought back, tries from grubbers by Benji Marshall and Robbie Farah bringing it back to 14-12.

But the turnstile defence came back to haunt the visitors with Farah letting Trent Waterhouse run straight past him when Farah was called offside by referee Ben Cummins - Waterhouse finding a fleet-footed Michael Jennings for a 20-12 lead.

Farah argued he was called out too late by the referee, and later claimed there was a lack of respect from the whistleblowers.

"I'm not the first captain to say it ... you try to talk to them on the field and for some reason they show you no respect," Farah said.

"I wanted to ask a few questions, they just kept brushing me." Farah let his football do the talking in the second half as he set up a second for Rhys Hanbury - who came on after one minute for Tim Moltzen who dislocated his elbow - before finding runaway train Taniela Tuiaki for a 22-all scoreline.

It was all downhill from there however, Frank Pritchard, Wade Graham and Lachlan Coote all scoring late to the delight of the 15,813 fans.

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