St George Illawarra winger Jason Nightingale admits he’s relieved to see Michael Jennings out of the Penrith side for Monday’s NRL clash but is still wary of the struggling Panthers.

The Dragons head to the foot of the Blue Mountains on the back of last week’s 30-6 humbling by North Queensland and, although Ivan Cleary’s side has lost its last five encounters, Nightingale believes the Panthers will hurt them unless they improve on their poor display in Townsville.

“Jennings is definitely a threat for them and you’d much rather to not face them from a defensive point of view with him in the side,” Nightingale said after the representative centre was dropped to reserve grade by Cleary.

The Panthers have been hit hard by injuries and struggled to build on an encouraging start to the season that saw them beat Sydney Roosters 18-0 and carve up Parramatta 39-6.

And the New Zealand Test winger said Dragons coach Steve Price has been drilling his side all week about the importance of a positive start at Centrebet Stadium.

“When a team is down and out they tend to come out firing,” Nightingale said.

“We didn’t start well last week and that’s what we worked hard on before the game.

“But it never happened and we found ourselves 20 points down and with too much to do.

“If we make the same mistake this week we will get punished again, especially by a side playing at home and we’ve talked about that this week.”

Penrith are sweating on the fitness of playmaker Travis Burns, who was carried off at training with an ankle injury, and still without halfback Luke Walsh who is recovering from a knee ligament problem.