NRL 2021
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**From the Bounce
NRL: The ones that got away**
Trevor McKewen signed Ivan Cleary as a player and writes of the mixed feelings he'll experience as a Warriors fan on Sunday.When I first started thinking seriously about sports journalism as a career in the late-80s, Trevor McKewen was the most prolific byline in the industry. As the sports editor of the big-selling Sunday News, McKewen pumped out lead after lead and angle after angle for the tabloid. Rugby and cricket were big rounds but having spent his formative years on the Gold Coast it was league (and surfing) that was closest to his heart.
After helping establish the Sunday Star-Times as its founding sports editor, McKewen left for Sydney to work as the media manager for Murdochâs Super League, the disruptor that changed professional sport in Australia in a way not seen since Packerâs foray into cricket. This was about the time I was finally doing something about my sports writing dream and I would end up being the league reporter for Sunday News when McKewen was appointed CEO of the struggling Warriors in 1998. Our paths diverged again as I left for my OE, but we have intersected since.
I was a sports reporter at the SS-T in 2004 when McKewen was appointed director of sport, though we donât tend to talk about that as I soon left to join the start-up Herald on Sunday. A decade later, he was back in charge in happier circumstances, this time as NZMEâs head of sport where I was sports editor-at-large.
McKewen is now a consultant for Sky TV. More importantly for the purposes of this piece, he is still a leaguie at heart. Ahead of Sundayâs blockbuster final between Penrith and Souths, McKewen is the perfect person to remind us just what the club missed out on when the coach and his family left Auckland for Sydney. Enjoy.
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Warriors supporters tuning into the NRL grand final on Sunday can be excused for thinking what might have been.
Sydneyâs Penrith Panthers were mocked and derided for years as the âChocolate Soldiersâ â a clever nod and wink to their cocoa-coloured strip from back in the day before clubs decided they needed to wear 419 differently designed jerseys a season. The Panthers had no claws and inevitably folded under pressure in any game of consequence.
No more. The ice might have been broken in 1990 when the club won its first premiership, inspired by indomitable journeyman Royce Simmons, mercurial halfback Greg âBrandyâ Alexander, volcanic Mark Geyer and a young colt named Brad Fittler. But there were missteps after, another title in 2003 with Kiwis second rowers Tony Puletua and Joe Galuvao to the fore, more missteps and it is only now that the club is seemingly established as a perennial powerhouse.
Father-and-son Ivan and Nathan Cleary are a major reason why.
Regardless of whether they tip over Wayne Bennettâs equally inspiring South Sydney Rabbitohs in the 2021 decider, the Panthers look here to stay as an NRL juggernaut. Their junior nursery in the west of Sydney is the envy of all other clubs and will ensure they draw on a huge ongoing reservoir of talent.
But add in an astute coach who can rub shoulders with the best in the game in understanding the emotional intelligence of his players, and a 23-year-old captain who plays like a grizzled double-decade veteran with a brain faster than Google, and you have a potent mix set to ensure Penrith continue to challenge Melbourne and the Roosters at the most dominant club in the game.
If youâre a Warriors fan, there will be an inescapable feeling of regret as you watch Cleary senior pull the levers from the Suncorp Stadium coaching box while Cleary junior pushes his team-mates around the park like a chess Grand Master.
Hugh McGahan and I signed Ivan to the Warriors as a player in late 1999 at the urging of coach Mark Graham who had run out of patience with Matthew Ridge and released the Kiwis fullback from the final year of his contract.
âSharkoâ wanted a goalkicking outside back and a leader to replace the irascible Ridge. Ivan, in the final year of his contract with the Sydney City Roosters, became our target.
Cleary was no blistering centre. In fact, there was very little flash to his game. But he was massively dependable, he could also play fullback, and exactly what Graham needed in a young side flush with emerging but green Kiwi talent including midfield partner Clinton Toopi, wingers Francis Meli and Henry Faâafili and the likes of Ali Lauitâiti and Monty Betham in the forward pack.
Ivan went on to score 439 points in 53 matches for the Warriors, winding up his playing career under Daniel Anderson in the 2002 grand final loss to the Roosters, a decade after making his first-class debut for Manly, ironically as a fullback understudy to Ridge.
He played two seasons for Grahamâs former club the North Sydney Bears in 1993 and â94, before a four-year stint with the Roosters where he accumulated 722 points.
Kevin Campion rightly deserves much credit for the steel he built in the Warriors in the early noughties, but it was Cleary who methodically built the confidence of his young backline, in particular Toopi who became arguably the best centre the Warriors have had.
Hugh, the Warriors football manager at the time, and I initially doubted we could sway Ivan to cross the Ta$man. Born and raised on Sydneyâs northern beaches, it looked a big ask.
We decided we needed to make he and wife Rebecca believe Auckland was actually an attractive city and perfect to raise a young family, including a two-year-old son named Nathan. After all, Ivanâs sole impression of Auckland had been formed by return bus trips from the airport to industrial Penrose.
We took husband and wife to the St Heliers waterside restaurant now known as Moretons and Hugh did the consummate sell on why the Warriors were a challenge Ivan couldnât turn down.
Unbelievably, he signed (and, while my memory is hazy, Iâm almost certain they bought in the St Heliers area too).
His first season provided plenty of reasons for thinking it was the dumbest decision of his life. With co-owners Graham Lowe and Malcolm Boyle butting heads with the Tainui owners, a closed chequebook when it came to signing other talent and Stacey Jones sidelined with a broken arm, it was a brutal season of under-performance.
It was also, however, an insight into Ivanâs mind. Behind that often expressionless façade was a league brain the size of a small planet. There was also an X-factor â an ability to understand and mentor young players, particularly Polynesian players.
Ivan Cleary came with an intuitive feel for how to get the best out of his players. Photo / Getty Images
That was a rare attribute, especially among Aussie imports. I am convinced Clearyâs playing years at the Warriors was invaluable preparation for the coaching career to come. Warriorsâ folklore has it that Daniel Anderson lost the dressing room in the latter stages of his tenure after he tore strips off Stacey Jones in front of the team at halftime in a key match. It was an eruption that soured the Polynesian contingent towards Anderson and he never recovered the confidence that shattered among the playing group.It was a lesson the more even-tempered Cleary would have already learned. Itâs also no coincidence that Penrith play with a certain joie de vivre. The Panthers are the most popular club in Sydney among kids; brimful of playful personalities not stymied by the NRLâs regimented fun police.
Ivan understands it takes many parts and personalities to mould a champion team. That, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game aligned with a nerveless demeanour, makes him a rare coaching talent.
Then thereâs the son.
Nathan was a toddler when the Clearys arrived in Auckland. I donât recall seeing him at Mt Smart back then but in the following years he was a regular fixture at Warriors training, retrieving errant balls and sitting obediently on the touchline watching.
Ivanâs sponge-like brain was clearly passed on. Young Nathan took it all in and then some. Already he is a superior player to his father, which I am sure Ivan wouldnât mind admitting. Unusually for wunderkind rookie halfbacks breaking into the NRL, Nathan was anything but a flash-and-dash merchant.
Critics marvelled at his poise under pressure. In his 2018 debut season he was calmly directing seasoned veterans 10 to 15 years his senior around the field and redefining the pressure game with a kicking game from another dimension.
He has only got better. Now captain of the Panthers and entrenched as the NSW State of Origin halfback, the league world is seemingly Nathanâs oyster.
If you close your eyes tight you can imagine Nathan Cleary in the blue jumper, guiding the Warriors around the park.
And therein lies the rub for Warriors fans.
After two years back in Sydney where he coached the Roosters to a lower-grade premiership, Ivan was wooed back to Mt Smart â this time as coach.
There were a couple of lean seasons in his tenure (10th out of 15 teams in his first season and 14th out of 16 teams in 2009), but under Cleary, the Warriors made the finals four out of six seasons â what would we give for consistency like that right now! Although it was somewhat overshadowed by the Rugby World Cup on home shores, in 2011 he guided the club to its second grand final, losing the decider to Manly.
That same year, a power struggle at the club saw Cleary let go in the face of an offer from Penrith. Itâs said Ivan would have stayed had the Warriors extended his contract to the same length Penrith was offering. They didnât â and the chance to secure a career coach in the vein of Wayne Bennett and the Broncos and Craig Bellamy and the Melbourne Storm was lost.
With it went Nathan, who could have become a lifetime Warrior (and potentially the Kiwis halfback).
Yes, Ivan struggled in his first two seasons at the Panthers and, after falling out with Phil Gould, left for a forgettable tenure at the Wests Tigers. Penrith had seen something, however, and when Gould was sidelined the Panthers again moved on their man, re-signing him in 2019.
Nathan had made his first-grade debut the year before.
Now reunited, father and son have now taken the Panthers to two grand final appearances in three seasons, including back-to-back efforts. They say you have to lose a grand final to know how to win one. Ivan has lost two as a player and two as a coach. Nathan has lost one.
The wily Bennett is a formidable opponent and Souths will have plenty of Kiwi backers hoping for another Benji Marshall fairytale.
But my heart is with the Panthers â even if I canât help but wonder what might have been if father and son had stayed at the Warriors.
- Trevor McKewen
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so much revisionism of Cleary's coaching at the Warriors
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@mariner4life said in NRL 2021:
so much revisionism of Cleary's coaching at the Warriors
He was one of our best coaches. He seemed to get more consistently week to week out of the team, without the awesome ball playing razzle dazzle of the Ali Lauititi era team
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looks like a bunny home game.. good turn out to be fair
Given the injuries penrith have and old man Wayne's 80% GF win rate, I don't think they will beat the rabbitohs, but we shall see.
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That was the worst award presentation I've ever seen.
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@antipodean said in NRL 2021:
Ivan and Nathan get their championship, courtesy of a gift wrapped intercept try from Souths
Souths were the only team that looked an attacking threat.
I only watched half. But Souths shot themselves in the foot I think
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Penrith were far more dominant on the night and somehow Souths just hung in there. Ironically Souths looked more dangerous on attack than Penrith just saw fewer opportunities. A weird game but a tight final. If Cody doesnât go for the cut out and passes to Gagai that intercept doesnât happen and likely 6 points down the other end. Could have been a different result too! Great game for a final though
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More public apologies, this time from three Storm players - Munster, Smith and Lewis.
Does that mean no more Big Smiffy Smiff adsâŚ
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@act-crusader said in NRL 2021:
More public apologies, this time from three Storm players - Munster, Smith and Lewis.
Does that mean no more Big Smiffy Smiff adsâŚ
Might be Sniffy Smiff now
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