Penrith No.7 Nathan Cleary has won his second Clive Churchill Medal as the player of the NRL grand final after scoring a sensational winning try against Brisbane Broncos.
Cleary won the same award in 2021 in a win over Souths – the first of three straight premierships for the Panthers.
Cleary said it could not be ranked as his best ever game – although he dragged the Panthers from the brink of defeat – due to the poor start to the second half.
With the Panthers behind 24-8 Cleary set up two tries and raced over for the clincer in the 77th minute.
“That performance by Nathan Cleary, the last 20 minutes of that game is without doubt the best performance by a halfback in a Grand Final. What a game from a champion halfback,” said Andrew Johns.
“It doesn’t feel real. Honestly it feels like a dream,” said Cleary. “The start of the second half was a nightmare, it was so bad. We were down but we were never out. We keep fighting, that’s our mentality.”
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
Asked if it was hius hardest game, he responded: “Yeah, it’s up there with Origin for sure. There was just so much fatigue.
“I had to keep talking to myself, just keep going, keep going. Then we got a little bit of a roll on. It would have been easy to give up then because [they] were going alright. But we had to keep fighting, and that’s what we did.”
Norm Provan holds the record for grand final player of the match wins with three, while Billy Slater and Brad Clyde have two apiece.
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