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'It's his jersey now': Mal speaks on Cleary call, with Panthers connection vital to decision

3rd November, 2022
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3rd November, 2022
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SALFORD – Mal Meninga has revealed that the Panthers connection between Nathan Cleary, Isaah Yeo and Liam Martin was the crucial factor in the Penrith halfback beating out Daly Cherry-Evans into the Kangaroos starting team.

Speaking ahead of training on Thursday morning (UK time), Meninga revealed how he had made his decision, and how he had informed Cherry-Evans of his thinking.

“I gave him that reason,” said the coach. “It’s probably a poor one when you think about it, but it came down to those connections at club level which swung it the way of Nathan. (DCE) is disappointed, but you never know what will happen in this tournament.”

Though the team had been revealed several days ago, Meninga was yet to speak on the issue as he had been bed bound with a bad bout of vertigo.

“I had some sleepless nights and that’s maybe why I’m so crook at the moment,” joked Mal.

“It’s hard to explain to the person why they missed out. I noticed through the week that he (Cleary) started to talk a lot more and he’s started to take control of the team a lot more.

“It’s his jersey now, it’s the start of his career playing for Australia and I’d like to see him have it for a long period of time.

It had been expected that a decision would be made earlier in the week, but after weeks of prevarication by various means, the world was forced to wait another day by Mal’s sickness.

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First, there was the squad numbers gimmick that Australia used to avoid naming a halfback in the 7 jumper – unlike everyone else – and then several weeks of listing the squad alphabetically to remove any indication of who would pull the strings on the field.

Against Italy, with both DCE and Cleary in the team, they split the halves pairing with each playing 40 minutes as halfback and 40 minutes at five eighth. Now, the weeks of speculation are over.

Cherry-Evans remains in the squad with regular starting hooker Ben Hunt rested and Harry Grant, usually the bench hooker, elevated to the starting squad.

“Nathan is playing seven,” said Meninga. “We made that decision. We just put everything in alphabetical order because everyone else does. But yeah, Nathan is starting at seven. DCE is at 14 this week. We have given Harry Grant 80 minutes of footy this week to get his match fitness up.

“We will make a decision whether we go with both hookers next week against New Zealand. I like that combo.

“DCE is mainly on the bench. There is a little bit of doubt on Nath and there are some injury issues with Cameron Munster and James Tedesco. He is just sitting there in case we need him.

“Nathan is a bit ill at the moment – we’re not quite sure how he is going to come through. Cameron Munster and James Tedesco have some niggly injuries so we might need to rest them through the game.”

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