Penrith are "vigorously defending" the actions of trainer Pete Green after he was suspended and the club was fined following their semi-final win.
Green instructed the officials to stop play with Mitch Kenny down injured and Parramatta on the attack in the dying stages of the Panthers' two-point win.
It was later determined Green had not made an initial assessment of Kenny before speaking to touch judge, seeing him suspended for the remainder of the season and the club fined $25,000.
Speaking ahead of his side's preliminary final against the Storm on Saturday, Penrith coach Ivan Cleary said the club isn't happy with the way the situation has been handled.
"I feel bad for both our trainers that were involved, one of them got named and sort of shamed which I think is completely unfair," Cleary said on Friday.
"We understand the NRL was probably put under a lot of pressure with so much publicity and whatnot, so we kind of understand how they may have come to that conclusion but at the end of the day our boys were just doing their job.
"They care for our players and that type of thing happens every game and every week but we get it, but certainly in the background we're vigorously defending it.
"We care about our people here and feel that was a little bit disappointing.
"We love Pete, he's a legend. We're talking about a guy who's extremely popular, outstanding at his job with the utmost integrity, so we're certainly all behind him."
Cleary said the club would be able to find a replacement trainer, while confirming Brian To'o was likely to take his place in the team after being a late withdrawal last week.
After starting the season in red-hot form in attack, the Panthers have managed just one try in each of their two finals so far.
The addition of To'o will help, while Cleary is confident he saw enough improvement in the narrow win over Parramatta to suggest there was more to come from his side.
"The most important thing about last week's game was that we improved from our first outing against the Rabbitohs, which we certainly did," Cleary said.
"I think our intent on both sides of the ball was much better. I thought we created enough chances in both those games, just haven't quite taken those opportunities, on another night we easily could."
Cleary also suggested his team would relish the rare chance to go into a game as underdogs.
"Although you probably don't like to admit it, but it would be naive to think that we weren't probably under a little bit of pressure just through out-and-out favouritism in both those games," Cleary added.
"That's kind of flipped this week where that expectation has turned to opportunity and I think those opportunities that we create might just be the difference between icing those and building confidence from there."
The Panthers take on Melbourne at Suncorp Stadium from 4pm on Saturday.
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