The painful lessons he learnt in the 2020 grand final loss propelled Nathan Cleary to the best quarter of football of his storied career.
Nathan Cleary reckons, in the space of one game, he produced his best and worst football.
The Penrith playmaker concedes that when the contest was getting away from him in the 2020 decider against Melbourne, he was “rattled”.Up until that time, Cleary was, by his own admission, off his game. Asked if he produced the best 20 minutes of his sterling career at the end when it counted, the halfback replied: “Well, I think the 20 minutes before it was close to the worst I’ve ever played.
“It was nice to finish on a high, I guess. To be honest, my experience from the past, particularly that 2020 Storm grand final helped me to be in the game at the end of this one. “Sometimes things feel shit at the time, like it did in that 2020 game, but it’s made me who I am today.”Panthers coach Ivan Cleary, even when the game was seemingly slipping away, never gave up hope. Asked if he felt his side was done, he admitted: “A fairly big part of me was leaning that way, but one thing I’ll never doubt is the ability of these boys to keep fighting.Change they did.
Brisbane coach Kevin Walters was struggling to make sense of what transpired in the final, frantic moments.“It’s hard to get your head around what actually happened. Very disappointing. I feel for all the players who gave so much. It just wasn’t enough in the end.“I thought the whole stadium felt we had done enough, except for a few people.“It’s something we can get better at next year, certainly. But right now it’s a pretty empty feeling.
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