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Penrith brushed Canterbury aside in a 32-12 NRL round-five win at Commbank Stadium.

Penrith weren't at their clinical best but did enough to get past Canterbury and maintain the unbeaten start to their NRL premiership defence with a 32-12 win.

Ivan Cleary's side started strongly in front of 11,157 fans at Commbank Stadium but slipped back into second gear after getting out to a comfortable lead on Sunday evening.

The loss was the fourth straight for Bulldogs coach Trent Barrett, who has tasted just two wins in his last 17 games in charge of Canterbury.

The intrigue for Canterbury centred on the return of Kyle Flanagan to first grade for the first time since round 13 last year.

Flanagan was deployed, Barrett said, to take the pressure off five-eighth Matt Burton and allow the Bulldogs' attack - which has now averaged eight points from the opening five rounds - to flourish.

Flanagan played a part in the opening try as his kick in-goal was fluffed by Jarome Luai, with Tevita Pangai on hand to pounce on the loose ball.

"He'll gain a lot of confidence out of that, no doubt," Barrett said of his halfback.

"We looked organised with the opportunities down on their tryline.

"As much as he wouldn't say it, he wouldn't have been that happy with the attention that he got.

"I thought he handled the attention really well. Certainly, our issues were at the back end of the field."

Apart from Pangai's try it was one-way traffic with Dylan Edwards, Liam Martin and Taylan May crossing for Penrith as Nathan Cleary converted all three and added a penalty to give the Panthers a 20-6 lead at halftime.

Prop Spencer Leniu went over after the break.

Canterbury could have thrown up the white flag but when fullback Matt Dufty wasn't dropping bombs - he had four errors - they went toe to toe with the Panthers.

With captain Isaah Yeo given an early mark ahead of a five-day turnaround, Penrith became sloppier.

The Dogs took advantage when Josh Addo-Carr finally received some early ball in space and was able to tee up a supporting Joe Stimson for their second try to make it 26-12 with 17 minutes left.

Any hopes of a comeback were short-lived, however, when Mitch Kenny burrowed his way over for the Panthers.

"I was really happy with the way we started," Cleary said. "The first half was good and we were confident the Dogs would be up for this one.

"The second half was a little bit scrappy but it's probably been better than a few of the other games where it's gone like that for us.

"We've still got a few young guys trying to concentrate for 80 minutes but all things considered it was a pretty good job."