“I don’t think ball playing is something that comes naturally to me”: Nathan Cleary.
Just imagine if it did.
Cleary had Andrew Johns, Johnathan Thurston, Cameron Smith and the rest of us mere rugby league mortals in raptures as he dissected Brisbane in a grand final mismatch on Thursday night.
To the point Johns declared it Cleary’s “best performance [that] we’ve seen. Ever.”
Cleary is not fibbing when he describes his playmaking evolution as “something I’ve had to work hard at and it’s built over time”.
His own natural introversion and cautious nature formed an early bedrock of precise kicking and sound defence to start his career, before the flair and flourish of last year’s 17-minute grand final masterclass gradually emerged.
Nathan Cleary again showed he is ahead of the NRL pack on Thursday.Credit: Getty
Penrith’s surgical carve-up of the Broncos, from the moment Reece Walsh exited stage left with a broken face and left their edge defence in a similar state, played out along the same lines.
In fine form on Channel Nine’s post-match panel, Thurston and Cleary talked through the Panthers persistent ‘cross plays’ throughout the opening 20 minutes, when Cleary consistently dropped runners back inside; “trying to build into the game, get our momentum going and tire out their middle.”
The play that (again) highlighted the genius of Nathan Cleary
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22.03.2024
“I don’t think ball playing is something that comes naturally to me”: Nathan Cleary.
Just imagine if it did.
Cleary had Andrew Johns, Johnathan Thurston, Cameron Smith and the rest of us mere rugby league mortals in raptures as he dissected Brisbane in a grand final mismatch on Thursday night.
To the point Johns declared it........
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