Penrith will turn their attention to the retention of star duo Michael Jennings and Frank Pritchard after Panthers skipper Petero Civoniceva rejected an offer to return to Brisbane and stay at the foot of the Blue Mountains.
Civoniceva will play out his career with the Panthers after signing a new two-year deal on Wednesday, the test prop knocking back a bid to go back home and finish his career where it all began with the Broncos in 1998.
Now the Panthers will ramp up talks with off-contract pair Jennings and Pritchard, with chief executive Mick Leary admitting negotiations were already "well down the track."
"Both boys want to stay and we want them to stay, " Leary said.
"The difficulty at the moment ... is to get a source for third party agreements, which we're well down the track in doing. We're hopeful in the near future of signing Jennings and then we'll go down the pecking order to Frank."
Aiding the Panthers' bid to hold onto the duo will be retention of Civoniceva, who said the prospect of the Panthers - currently fourth on the NRL ladder - contending for a premiership over the coming years was too great an opportunity to pass up.
"It feels like we're in the process of fulfilling a really strong culture and I'm very close to the boys here at the club ... I think to walk away from that wouldn't have been right," Civoniceva said.
"My family knew how happy I was here and since I've come here I think I've played some of my consistent football and that's all because of what we're building here."
The 34-year-old admitted the prospect of returning to the Broncos - with whom he played 215 games - was tempting.
"I certainly had to look at it," Civoniceva said.
"The fact that my family are up there and that's where I started my career, it had a huge part in that, but I had some deep discussions with Matt (Panthers coach Matt Elliott) about the direction I wanted to take the next few years.
"I'll always be a part of that club ... I had a tremendous career there. But that is my past and this is my future."
While Civoniceva will be 36 by the time his new deal ends in 2012, Elliott refused to rule out the workhorse forward for another tour of duty, likening his career to that of NFL great Brett Favre, who at 40 years of age this year completed his 19th season of professional football.
"Pet talks about this being his last contract - I sort of cringe a bit with that," Elliott said.
"I think all we're doing is working off past models and I think there's an opportunity here to change the model.
"There has been a fairy strong philosophy running trough our game in the past that you're better off letting them go a year early rather than a year too late.
"They let their senior players go with consequences on and off the field I really believe that if we didn't work hard to keep Petero it certainly would have been a year too early, maybe two, maybe three.
"Hopefully, a bit like Brett Favre in the NFL, we look at someone who can break the paradigms we're stuck with at the moment."
