Leaving Panthers without a premiership not an option for Capewell

Broncos-bound forward Kurt Capewell says leaving Penrith without a title after two hugely dominant seasons is not an option.

The 28-year-old Charleville product heads home to Queensland next year after taking a longer-term deal at Brisbane and says that after last week's loss to Souths, his imminent departure became a lot more real.

"It's obviously something that hit me after the game last week. It's sudden death now," Capewell said.

"I'll be taking every chance I can to play with these boys. I don't see it ending this week.

"Falling short would be a massive disappointment to me. There's only one option this year."

The former Shark and Ipswich Jet has enjoyed a dream run since moving to Penrith, making his Origin debut and playing all six possible Origins while winning 24 club games and losing just four (with one draw). Sadly one of those four was last year's grand final – something he is desperate to atone for before heading back north.

"We've worked so hard over the last two years to give ourselves this opportunity," he said.

"They don't come around that often and we've got the squad to do it. Falling short would be a big disappointment to myself so there's no other option."

Rather than having their confidence dented by last week's 16-10 loss to Souths, Capewell said it actually built the squad's confidence that they can play so far below their best and still come close to winning a finals game.

"If anything we can take more confidence out of it, to be honest," he said.

"We were nowhere near our best on the weekend and for the last 10 minutes there we sort of looked like we were coming over the top of them. If we can play our best footy I don't think anyone can stop us. It's made me more confident.

"I don't believe you need to lose to learn your lessons but unfortunately we lost on the weekend and we take our lessons out of that and go into this week a better team.

"I don't think we have to change anything. We've been playing pretty good footy for the last two years so I don't see Ivan changing too much. I've known for the last two years we've had the team to do it.

"Unfortunately last year we didn't get the job done on the big day. This week we've just got to concentrate on us and playing our style of footy which is pretty much that finals template."

Don't Blink or you'll miss a moment of the NRL finals - tickets are on sale now at NRL Tickets