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His team may have racked up their biggest score of the year, but Penrith coach Ivan Cleary was still unhappy with the defence in their 56-24 win over Cronulla.

Ivan Cleary has slapped down the premiership hype growing around Penrith, saying NRL contenders don't leak 24 points like they did on Saturday.

The Panthers will wake up on Sunday sitting atop the competition table after putting a mammoth ten tries on Cronulla at Netstrata Jubilee Stadium.

Nineteen-year-old Charlie Staines had a debut to remember, scoring four tries in what was Penrith's biggest win of the season so far.

The victory prompted Sharks coach John Morris to declare that the Panthers were no longer flying under the radar when it came to being a title threat.

Morris pointed to the Panthers were at the top of the league in completion rates, forcing line dropouts, and keeping opposition attacks away from their tryline.

"That's just the foundations of rugby league and they're getting it right. And their defence is really good at the moment," Morris said.

"They're only giving away 13.5 points on average a game.

"So whilst they've been churning out those stats, you must be doing something right. I don't think they'll be under the radar after that performance today."

While Cleary was pleased with how his attack clicked enough to claim their highest total of the season, they're defence still leaked four tries.

It was the most they'd conceded since the league returned from lockdown.

"I think the best premiership threats wouldn't have let in 24 today. We've still got a lot of work to do," Cleary said.

"But (talk of premiership threats is) for other people to work out.

"We're just trying to get better. (We) did enough today, it was a completely different game to, we would've got some confidence out of that in our attack.

"But we made it hard for ourselves at times as well."