‘Should never happen’: Nathan Cleary calls for change after Panthers dudded
Penrith’s Origin contingent were at the centre of a head-scratching dilemma after Game 2.
Nathan Cleary has pleaded with NRL bosses to address a controversial scheduling issue that dudded Penrith after Origin Game 2 in Perth. The Panthers were left with little choice but to rest their entire Origin contingent for the round 16 clash against the Warriors in New Zealand, after a situation Cleary said should never have been allowed to happen.
Penrith’s match against the Warriors kicked off in Auckland only 67 hours after Origin 2 in Perth, with the Panthers’ Blues contingent facing a gruelling 5,300km trip. The Panthers determined it would be impractical to rush their Origin stars onto a six-hour flight immediately after their recovery session, especially with a return trip to Sydney to back up against Canterbury five days later on the cards as well.
While Penrith defied the odds to win both games, it marked the first time a team had been forced to play in Auckland within a week of an Origin match in Perth. And with the Perth Bears and Papua New Guinea entering the NRL in 2027 and 2028 respectively, Cleary says the scheduling issue around Origin is something league bosses need to sort out sooner rather than later.
“That’s probably going to be something that needs to be looked into, just the scheduling,” Cleary said. “In terms of teams like Townsville (North Queensland), the Perth team now, New Zealand (Warriors), they shouldn’t really ever be playing short turnarounds, or if you travel you shouldn’t be on a short turnaround.”
Currently, the longest non-stop flight for a team travelling to another’s regular home ground is from Auckland to Brisbane at around four hours, with North Queensland flying via Brisbane for that trip as well. But a flight from Auckland to Perth would be almost twice that at seven-and-a-half hours, with westerly winds making the trip even longer heading east to west.
Teams will also face long travel times heading to Port Moresby, with commercial flights from the east coast currently stopping via Brisbane en route to PNG. League boss Peter V’landys has previously floated the idea of the NRL purchasing its own private jet, but those plans have yet to come to fruition.
Nathan Cleary wants NRL to sort out schedule around Origin
“There’s been a few things with the schedule this year, definitely not just for us but for other teams,” the Penrith co-captain said. “I think they need to put more consideration into it, particularly for teams like Perth when they’re around, Townsville and the Warriors. I obviously don’t know the perfect way to do it but it’s going to have to be a consideration for those teams in particular.”
The situation has been exacerbated for some clubs by the controversial 18th man issue for Origin. There have been calls for NSW and Queensland to only be able to pick players as 18th man if their clubs are on the bye that weekend, so they’re not further put out by losing key players who may not even play Origin.
But NSW Blues team performance manager Frank Ponissi questioned that solution and said fixing the scheduling around the Origin period was the only solution. “What makes it difficult is the draw is unbalanced, so you don’t know who’s going to play. Some weeks that situation… it may favour NSW more than QLD because there’s more NSW players not playing that weekend compared to QLD,” Ponissi told Triple M.
“We’ve got to get the draw right before we get this particular issue correct. Origin has to be played in the middle of the season, it’s so big and massive for our game. It’s what we do with the NRL around the Origin period, we’ve got to get that right. So when we can sort that out, I think the 18th man and everything else will fall in line.”
One solution would be to suspend the NRL competition during Origin weeks and make the interstate series a standalone fixture. Another would be to change the rule around the 18th man to allow them to play for their clubs before linking back up with their state – something NRL CEO Andrew Abdo has admitted he’s open to discussing.