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Opinion
The recent weeks in the NRL has showcased the value our game places around its halfbacks.
It seems like everyone bar the management and recruitment of Souths are paying attention. Adam Reynolds is a true Rabbitoh and a damn good halfback.
While quiet the past few seasons, the spotlight regarding the cessation of Reynolds’ contract at the end of 2021 has shun a light on his deft touch with the right foot and his match-winning vision.
He alone sits at 100 points scored for the year already. He is 12 points behind who many don the best player of 2021 so far – Nathan Cleary.
I won’t argue with this. Just past Round 10, I don’t see anyone chasing Cleary for the Dally M Medal. It’s a prospect I’m sure punters are annoyed about, as the market for Dally M medallist was canned last year.
What more could you ask of a player and captain?
(Photo by Brett Hemmings/Getty Images)
There’s no denying the fact that the Panthers are an exemplar of how an NRL team should perform. As a fan of the game in general, it’s encouraging to see how well-oiled, consistent and fresh the front-runners of our competition are.
The Panthers play a style unmatched by the structure of the Storm and the fast ruck phase play of the Roosters. Their left-edge attack is a worrying sight for opposition backrowers. Jarome Luai dances around the paddock with two hands on the ball.
He’s a threat who many, like former Australian five-eighth and now Fox Sports Personality Matty Johns believe, has rightfully earned a New South Wales number 6 jersey.
Luai embarrasses the communication of opposition backlines more than Andrew Fifita embarrasses himself with the poor man’s Villiame Kikau bleached mop he rocks.
On the right, Cleary has evolved his game to be just as unpredictable. He does this through his reformed love of challenging the defensive line with his strong running.
The job to contain Cleary once he takes on the line has changed immensely. Since late 2019, he has gained near five kilograms of muscle, and boy does it show.
While we see the likes of smaller halfbacks such as Adam Reynolds and Luke Brooks scoring triess through support play, Cleary will charge at the line confidently and occasionally silence some of the games bigger players.
This was seen in the Panthers’ recent rampage of the Titans, where Cleary went over for three tries, executed three try-assists and subsequently broke the NRL Supercoach record for most points in a single outing.
He’s clocked up 45 goals off the boot, 4,537 kick metres (almost 1000m more than runner-up Chad Townsend) and 10 try assists for the season already.
Yet by far, the best attribute to his game isn’t a statistic. It’s his mind.
At 23, he’s led the Panthers into a win-streak like no other: 25 consecutive regular-season wins, 10 of those to kick start 2021.
They are the only team in the NRL era to go 10-0. Andrew Johns stated that Cleary will be the dominant player of the next decade.
His dominance is further aided by those around him. Liam Martin is playing the role of a traditional second-row, smashing the under’s ball and flat line to add the short-pass option on Penrith’s fourth and fifth tackle. He’s also got late footwork at the line, scoring two tries on the right edge this year.
(Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)
Give Brian To’o an inch and he’ll run 243 metres a game. If I were To’o, I’d be asking big James Fisher-Harris and Moses Leota for a chunk of their contracts.
Luckily, they are performing with metres and offloads too, adding so much traffic up the middle third Penrith’s training surface must have changed to the Great Western Highway.
What seems to click at Penrith is their culture. As a young captain, Cleary seems to have the utmost respect from his peers.
The Backstreet Boys of the West (Luai, Stephen Crichton and Brian To’o) embody the strong bonds of the players off-field, having a laugh and not taking themselves too seriously.
I’m not sure if Ivan Cleary knows what ‘Munyenyo’ is, but I don’t think he minds To’o’s antics as long as he keeps pumping those legs pre and post contact.
Cleary and the Panthers are flying. Every journo, fan and punter can tell you that at the moment.
With critics asking every week ‘Can Nathan play better footy than what he is at the moment?’, why don’t we let him answer that.
With 109 caps under his belt and 921 points scored all for Penrith already, questions will continue to roll in. For now, he represents what every NRL team wants out of their halfback, a man that makes everyone else beside him look better.
As a captain, his consistency, maturity and skill is a mouth-watering combination for all recruitment boards. If the Broncos ever had him in the past, I’d hope they’d dig themselves a grave next to all the other corpses of ‘what could’ve been’.
We won’t have to keep our eyes on him, Cleary’s form isn’t a new trend. I feel sorry for every other half in the comp.
At the moment it’s a monopoly, every number seven chasing the strategy and skill of the Prince from Penrith. It seems like those out West don’t understand how the Royal Hierachy works. Generally a Prince doesn’t have more power than a ‘King’.
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