Ten wins from 15 matches. That’s the daunting prospect facing Penrith to make the NRL finals.

But coach Anthony Griffin says don’t tell his side they can’t do it because they did exactly that last year.

While Griffin didn’t mince words about the do-or-die status of the Panthers’ clash with the Warriors at Pepper Stadium on Friday night, he remains upbeat for a man whose side is 2-7 and 15th.

To reach the magical 28-point mark – which has traditionally been the cut off for eighth spot – the Panthers can only afford to lose five more games.

It would be a remarkable run but what’s fuelling Penrith’s belief is that they did the exact thing last year when they won 10 matches from round 10 onwards.

“It was just a lot of hard work,” Griffin said of their 2016 run to the finals.

“Our start to the year was patchy and frustrating just like this year has. We had a couple more wins on the board but the players worked very hard and we found a couple of tough wins.

“Sometimes that confidence, you don’t know where it goes, and all of a sudden it appears again out of a couple of key moments that you find together in a game.”

But history is against the Panthers.

According to Fox Sports Stats, only three sides since 1954 have started with two wins or less after 10 rounds and made the finals – Brisbane in 1999, Canberra in 2002 and Parramatta in 2006.

Should they lose to the Warriors it would be their sixth loss in a row and the club’s worst losing streak since 2002.

Griffin denies the pressure is mounting on his position, especially given they entered the year as premiership favourites with many bookies and pundits.

“It’s frustrating but we never believed we were premiership favourites,” Griffin said.

“It’s probably a lot of people who got themselves under pressure from the predictions they were making.”