Ivan Cleary reveals how close he came to quitting as Penrith Panthers coach
Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has opened up on the highs and lows of his career, revealing the thing he hated most about his time at the Tigers.
NRL
Don't miss out on the headlines from NRL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Ivan Cleary has made the shock revelation that the pressure of coaching his son Nathan forced him to consider quitting less than a year into his first season back at Penrith.
It’s an extraordinary admission from a coach who has gone on to lead the Panthers to three straight grand finals, two premierships, and the prospect of rugby league’s next great dynasty.
Speaking on the ‘Get The Edge’ podcast with Penrith’s former head of performance, Hayden Knowles, Cleary revealed the struggles and external pressure that plagued his first season, leaving him doubting whether he had made a mistake in sensationally quitting Wests Tigers for a five-year deal at the Panthers.
Languishing at the bottom of the NRL ladder 10 weeks into the 2019 season, Cleary hit rock bottom, telling himself, “I don’t think I’m the right man for this job”.
He opened up on the guilt he felt because of the negative effect his return had on his son Nathan’s form and how a change in his mentality helped spark a turnaround.
He also gave an insight into what is behind Penrith’s drive for success, and a warning for rival clubs looking to stop the Panthers’ bid for a historic threepeat.
“It’s never finished. It’s the infinite game,” he said.
THE COACHING TURN
Following his retirement from playing after the New Zealand Warriors’ 2002 grand final loss to the Sydney Roosters, Cleary went straight into a lower-grade coaching role with the Roosters.
After just three years in NSW Cup, he was appointed the Warriors’ NRL coach.
“It’s ruthless and you are not prepared for it,” Cleary said.
However, the renowned goalkicker always felt the urge to take charge.
“One thing about being a leader is you have to have responsibility for something bigger than yourself,” he said.
“There’s this innate feeling that you have to have a sense of responsibility for a group of people.
“If you’re the goalkicker, then you’re the only guy who can kick that two points for your team. I never really thought about it like that.
“But I think that’s why I became a coach or a leader, because I just have this innate feeling of responsibility that I like being able to do this to help the team.”
PENRITH: FIRST ACT
Six years at the helm at the Warriors, and four years into his Panthers tenure, then head of football Phil Gould sacked Cleary in 2015, claiming the coach looked tired.
While Cleary didn’t like it, he agreed the break helped him shape the coach he would become.
“That was a really good year for me because I reflected a lot. I’d been 10 years as a head coach,” he said.
“Talking about philosophy I really nailed what was authentic to me, what I thought what was going to work. So I was really looking forward to my next phase of my coaching.
TIGER TALE
Wests Tigers gave Cleary a road back to NRL coaching, spending two seasons in Concord.
“I’m forever grateful for that opportunity,” Cleary said.
“Things were going really well there. I was really enjoying it.
“But one thing that gnawed at me was I had to coach against my son, who was playing here at Penrith, Nathan.
“The two games I did it, I hated it. My wife hated it. I just really didn’t like it.”
And it wasn’t just because Cleary’s Tigers lost both games to Nathan’s Panthers, 28-14 in Round 22, 2017, and 16-2 in Round 11 the following season.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Cleary’s reputation, with Tigers fans at least, took a big hit when he jumped off the bus to return to the Panthers.
“It was a really messy situation,” he admitted.
“The Panthers offered to get me back and it was like, ‘Oh man, I would really like that’.
“Honestly, nothing against the Tigers, but I had unfinished business here. I started a rebuild (in 2012). We’d moved our family out here and become part of the community.
“To be able to coach Nathan was just the icing on top.”
ROCK BOTTOM
Just as nothing could prepare Cleary for the coaching cauldron, the pressure of son Nathan as his star halfback was even more intense.
“The messiness of my exit at the Tigers, plus the father and son thing, was a big story,” Cleary said.
“And if we failed, that was going to be a bigger story.
“That’s exactly what was happening.”
Penrith lost eight of their first 10 games.
By his own admission, Cleary was “coaching terribly”, and, as a result, “Nathan wasn’t playing well.”
Rock bottom came in Round 10 and a 30-10 home loss to the Warriors.
“Oh man, I remember the game finishing and thinking, ‘Well I’m responsible for that. That was awful’,” he recalled.
“I was at the lowest of the lows.
“One thing about a leader, you are responsible for how the team plays. That’s on you and we were terrible.
“I was not at my best that year in so many ways.
“I was halfway through the first year of a five-year contract and I definitely was thinking, ‘I don’t think I’m the right man for this job’.”
IMPACT ON NATHAN
Not only was Cleary failing the team, he was failing his son.
“I honestly felt really guilty because it was affecting Nathan’s form,” he said.
“There was talk he shouldn’t get picked for Origin.
“You talk about support, Freddie Fittler supported him unbelievably through that period.
“The team is playing badly. The star halfback is suffering because of our relationship. I was burdening him through the pressure of this father and son thing.
“We knew there was going to be some hard times but we couldn’t actually put our finger on what that was going to be.
“In that first year, we pretty much got it all.”
Cleary was also gripped by what he and Knowles described as FOPO – fear of people’s opinions.
Seattle Seahawks NFL coach Pete Carroll and sports psychologist Michael Gervais coined the term, and it was paralysing both Ivan and Nathan.
TURNAROUND
The following week Penrith upset rivals Parramatta 16-10 at CommBank Stadium, a game highlighted by the memorable debut of local junior Mitch Kenny.
Penrith won seven straight games and nine of their final 14, but failed to make the finals.
Yet, the seeds of change had been sewn. Kenny and Brian To’o had provided “fresh blood into the team”.
“I’m gonna see this thing out,” Cleary remembers thinking as he underwent “a bit of a mindset change.
“It was like, now or never, we’re going for it.”
CULTURE
Cleary has a vision on which he has built this team around, focusing on club values of trust and treating each other well.
“Culture is about people. You’ve actually got to get people who fit that culture properly. If they don’t fit into that, then they can’t be here,” he said.
“That’s not a personal thing, that’s just how it is.”
COACHING NATHAN
Because of the profile he had, Cleary had not coached his son before, even as a kid.
“When I came to Panthers and coached him at NRL level, that was, apart from little episodes in under-six soccer, the first time that I had coached him,” Cleary revealed.
So how does he approach it?
“It was always going to be just give him a few things, fundamentals on what he should do, and just leave it to him,” Cleary said.
“Still, to this day, I talk to him about the same stuff I talked to him about when he was 14, before a game.
“Start the game, get involved early. Get your defence right. Just be aggressive. Run the ball.
“Real triggers to get him into the game.
“Then the rest, his training takes over. His competitiveness takes over.
“If I feel like his form is maybe dipping a little bit, just go back to that.
“Especially in big games like Origin.”
Having Nathan established as the team’s halfback and leader eliminates one issue for Cleary.
“I wouldn’t have coached him at this level if he was a fringe player,” he said
“I know myself, I would’ve been affected by other people’s opinions. I would’ve made decisions that I think suited that agenda, which is the wrong way.”
It gives an insight into how Brad Arthur is treading a different path over at Parramatta, where his son Jake just turned 20 and is behind fellow halfback Mitchell Moses, trying to establish himself in first grade while being coached by his father.
But, for Cleary, the rewards are there.
“I love it. To spend every day with my son, we’re working together, following the same goal. All the other boys around us. It’s just awesome,” he said.
“I love it when he comes over to our place for a barbecue and we talk a bit of footy, it’s really cool. I feel very lucky.”
CONSCIOUS BIAS
Just as he shied away from coaching Nathan as a kid, Cleary is also careful about showing a conscious bias towards his son.
“I refrain from giving Nathan the praise that he should get sometimes. I definitely do,” Cleary said.
“I probably should give him a bit more praise, whether it is in front of the team, or publicly. But I think he understands as well.”
Knowles said he was blown away with Nathan’s work ethic. How much he studies the game. It’s a sentiment rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns shares.
“I still get shocked by the amount of work he is putting in,” Cleary said as his son grew up watching his father coach training sessions.
“He also really had to work on himself around the mental side of the game.
He’s done a lot of work outside of just kicking, passing, technical stuff, physical stuff
He’s fallen in love with preparation.
“Isaah Yeo is the same. Both our captains are on a mission, every single game, to prepare so hard so there’s no excuses (come) game time.
That’s not easy. Because it’s really easy to leave yourself a little bit of wiggle room to go up.
If you feel like you’ve done every single thing then you fail, where do you go to then?
“It’s very brave.”
INFERIORITY COMPLEX
When Cleary first got the Panthers job in 2012, the family made the decision to live in the area, immerse themselves in the community and not return home to the northern beaches and commute.
“Early days I saw a lot of Parramatta jerseys, Rabbitohs, Dragons, the typical old clubs. And I just thought, ‘I’d like to see people getting around in Panthers kit’.
“We didn’t get a lot of crowds coming to the game.
“I thought, ‘That is going to be the barometer, I reckon’.
“When the team wins or when the team is doing well, everyone feels a bit better.
“Out here in Penrith you look back towards the city and I just feel like there was that little bit of an inferiority complex. Very proud, but they look down on us, make jokes about us.
“What a position we’re in to be able to influence that.
“It’s not just about footy, it’s about community.
“If our football team is a reason for the local community to be proud or feel good about themselves, wow. How good is that, what an opportunity.”
THREEPEAT
Cleary doesn’t talk about winning a third straight premiership, a feat that hasn’t been achieved since Parramatta 40 years ago.
But he speaks about maintaining that community pride that comes with success and guarding against complacency.
“It’s never finished. It’s the infinite game,” he said.
“We’ve set the bar pretty high.
“If the community is proud of us, we’ve got to keep it. We’ve got to find new ways to keep make them even more proud.”
More Coverage
Originally published as Ivan Cleary reveals how close he came to quitting as Penrith Panthers coach
Join the conversation
Gus’ ‘doctored’ claim ignites NRL conspiracy
The NRL Grand Final’s controversial no try scandal has taken a wild turn despite the game releasing the angle the decision was based on.
Read more
Kangaroos selection shocks: NRL legends’ Test careers appear over
Mal Meninga has dropped a major selection bombshell by overlooking both James Tedesco and Kalyn Ponga for Kangaroos selection, with the list of surprise omissions and debutants not ending there. See the full squad.
Read more