Having won the past four premierships in a row, the Panthers again began the season as title favourites. But a diabolical start has put the pressure on Ivan Cleary – not that you’d know by watching him during a game.
When does a dynasty die? There is no knowing when the end begins. Ivan Cleary, coach of the Panthers – who have won the past four NRL premierships but are now on a lowly ladder position, says, “I’m not even sure of the exact definition of a dynasty. Have we had one, or are we still in one at Penrith? There is no such thing as a machine in perpetual motion. At some point, you’ve got to stop for fuel.”
He agrees the continual loss of players in the salary cap era, including three top-class ones at the end of the 2024 season – James Fisher-Harris, their physically dominant forward leader; Jarome Luai, the attacking foil for his own son, Nathan, and Sunia Turuva, a first-half tryscorer in last year’s grand final – helps drain the tank.
As will the coming loss of co-captain Isaah Yeo, Liam Martin, Cleary and possibly fullback Dylan Edwards to the NSW team, making it difficult to win enough games to make this year’s top eight. Nor did results up to Magic Round suggest their replacements, despite being the product of the NRL’s best assembly line, would help the Panthers peat, let alone five-peat.
“All that adds to it possibly ending,” says Cleary, on the eve of his team’s comprehensive 32-8 win over the Broncos in Brisbane. The victory is a timely warning that it is foolish to proclaim the death of a dynasty.
There is no voice of doom from the top of the Blue Mountains saying the club is slipping down to the lowlands where the also-rans live. Melbourne is described as a dynasty, yet the club has never won consecutive premierships.
If Cleary has doubts about the end of a dynasty, he has certainty about its beginning . When the Panthers were beaten 26-20 by Melbourne in the 2020 grand final, he told reporters, “I’d love to have the game tomorrow, that’s for sure.”
Asked about it now, he says, “I genuinely meant it. I felt like we ran out of time. I felt like I’d like to have the first half again and it would have been enough. Although the play-offs had been tight, everything in the grand final went faster. The Storm’s line speed was fantastic. We made a few mistakes. Nathan threw an intercept and couldn’t get it out of his head. But I also thought at the time that this is part of the journey. And it was.”
If there are any doubts this was the game that motivated Penrith, the Panthers players made it obvious in their redemptive victory over Melbourne last year.
It has never been previously reported but some of the Storm’s younger players were shocked at the vitriol Penrith spewed at them as they stood behind the posts after a try. Luai had not forgotten the “get back to Mount Druitt” slur from the Storm’s Jahrome Hughes. The Fibro versus Silvertail ethos of under-privilege persists in Sydney’s western suburbs and Cleary, who has lived in Penrith for 14 years and still owns a house in the northern beaches, makes no apology for any sledging. “It was still remembered,” he said. “We learnt a lot from the 2020 grand final, including a lot of stuff that happened off the ball.”
Cleary had coached more than 370 games by the time he won his first premiership. He had previously coached the Warriors, Panthers and Wests Tigers before returning to Penrith.
It sounds ludicrous to suggest a man with all that experience, including taking the Warriors to the 2011 grand final, would grow as a coach along with his young team but he agrees. “Definitely,” he says. “My career had all been about rebuild. By the time I got back to Penrith, it was the first time I actually thought I had a team that could win a grand final. I could see green shoots and blue sky.”
He admits he feared for his reputation. “I wondered whether I would be the guy who was only known for dragging teams up out of the gutter and not reaching the top. I have definitely grown as coach along the way with these players.”
Penrith have led a tactical revolution in the NRL, using their back five to create field position and hence balance the energy output of backs and forwards. “Part of that decision was personnel,” says Cleary with reference to the power of the now injured winger Brian To’o and fullback Edwards returning the ball to near halfway. “The beauty of the back five is that they can get the forwards thinking about defence. All our stats in the game are about attack but I’ve always believed defence wins games and attack decides by how much.”
Some observers believe the Panthers led in exploiting the six-again rule by deliberately conceding breaches early in the tackle count to trap a team in its own 40-metre zone. “We definitely didn’t do it deliberately,” Cleary says. “We place a lot of emphasis on controlling the ruck and line speed but the breaches weren’t deliberate.”
He does admit to introducing the ruse of blockers preventing opposition players from hurrying the kicker. The Storm’s Christian Welch was particularly effective harassing Nathan in the 2020 grand final and Penrith’s sophisticated blocking system was the response.
‘I wondered whether I would be the guy who was only known for dragging teams up out of the gutter and not reaching the top’
Ivan Cleary
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Cleary says, before conceding the NRL subsequently did the job for him by penalising any player who makes contact with a kicker. “Halves now have a level of protection on kicks.”
He also pleads guilty to the recent scrum ploy of the half placing the ball on the ground and retreating to first receiver in the backline, while a scrum player picks it up and feeds the ball. Insofar as it adds a man to the backline, it creates an overlap. “The Roosters did it to us and scored a try,” Cleary admits.
He wasn’t resentful he had been punished by his own invention. “I thought at the time, ‘That is pretty cool, too.’” He explains the ploy came in response to the NRL ban on teams holding the ball at the base of the scrum. “A lot of scrum tries came from that but the NRL stopped it and now they have done it again by making us re-start the scrum feed.”
However, he concedes the NRL’s relentless mission to increase ball in play time by reducing stoppages has benefitted Penrith and Melbourne. “The continuity has helped us,” he agrees. “The six-again rule has been good for us but most of the calls you don’t know what they are for.” He echoes the complaint of all coaches that referees can use repeat sets to even up a game.
He welcomes a review of the salary cap, saying, “Penrith doesn’t get any rewards for players developed in our pathways going to other clubs as NRL players. We are doing a good job for the NRL producing players.”
Luai left after four premierships, including leading the team last year in place of an injured Nathan who also missed NSW’s Origin winning series in which Luai played a stellar role. Asked if the Panthers under-valued the five-eighth, Cleary said, “I definitely did not under-estimate him. We fought tooth and nail to keep him. We couldn’t get near the money he was offered plus he wanted to forge his own path. I’m proud of what he is doing at Wests Tigers but I wish he was here.”
Like his colleagues, he rails against the NRL draw which resembles something dreamed up by muppets Ernie and Bert. Penrith’s Origin players are required to play a 3pm match on a Saturday in Auckland after the Wednesday evening Origin encounter in Perth. “They [Penrith’s Origin representatives] won’t be playing in Auckland,” Cleary said.“It’s ridiculous. I don’t have a choice.”
So, let’s go back to that 2020 grand final – the beginning of the Penrith dynasty. Would Cleary have liked a time-out, as they have in US sports, where a coach can stop the game and settle the players. “If we were able to have them, that’s the sort of game where it would have helped,” he said. “But in the NRL we have time-outs for things we don’t want time-outs for.”
As he sits in the coach’s box at games, awaiting the Bunker’s decision, he looks composed while his rivals stress and fume. “Underneath the surface, I ride all the highs and lows, just like the other coaches,” he reveals.
He is not fussed over the chatter whether the Panthers happy hour of a half decade is over. Time is famously impatient. It flies, it marches on, it waits for no-one. Yet things change quickly in the NRL.
Prior to Magic Round, time stood next to Cleary, cruelly tapping its wristwatch. Yet he betrays no hint time has run out for the Panthers, as it did in 2020. “Regardless of what happens to us, whether it is now, next year, we’ll have every chance of success in the years to come,” he says with the Zen-like calm that shields the emotions which roil within.