Cleary clan cop horror night as Penrith hit rock bottom in Brisbane

Ivan Cleary could finish his first year back at Penrith with a wooden spoon. Incredible, right? Yet this is where his Panthers are at, a third of the way through the 2019 NRL season.

Nathan Cleary had a tough night out at Suncorp Stadium. (AAP Image/Darren England)

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Ivan Cleary could finish his first year back at Penrith with a wooden spoon.

Incredible, right?

Yet this is where his Panthers are at.

A third of the way through the 2019 NRL season, coach Cleary is overseeing a side that, after not so much being beat as humbled by Wests Tigers in Magic Round, wake on Saturday morning in last spot.

Nathan Cleary had a tough night out at Suncorp Stadium. (AAP Image/Darren England)

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And should Canterbury get up against the Newcastle Knights on Saturday afternoon, well, these mountain men will be all alone in purgatory.

Which is how Waqa Blake must’ve felt watching this one at home on TV.

And just on Blake, at what point do you reckon the Panthers right centre - who misread the week’s training schedule, missed a ballwork session and was subsequently dropped - really started to regret his error?

Maybe it was after six minutes, when Tigers hooker Robbie Farah broke through on an edge, Blake’s edge, for what would finish as a Luke Brooks try.

Penrith hit the bottom of the ladder following the loss. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

Or perhaps it was two minutes later, when it was Tigers backrower Chris McQueen bursting up an edge, again Blake’s edge, for an Esan Marsters finish.

Which is about the time we started Googling NRL wooden spoons. That, and exactly when Penrith last got it.

Answer: 2007.

So how did it get to this?

Remembering only 24 hours earlier here at Suncorp Stadium, it was the Gold Coast who absolutely butchered an opportunity to beat a Cronulla side missing $4 million in talent.

In the process, looking every inch a TAB favourite for most losses.

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Yet then Friday night, Penrith said: ‘Hold my beer’.

Which isn’t meant to mock a group of men who, undoubtedly, play the toughest footy code anywhere on the planet.

And if you want ‘grit’ in concentrated form, look no further than the 83kg of James Maloney.

But against Wests, it wasn’t simply the points Penrith gave up that mattered, but the way they did it.

Which seems incredible for an outfit which boasts not only the reigning NSW Origin halves, in Maloney and Nathan Cleary, but incumbent Blues prop Reagan Campbell-Gillard, New Zealand captain Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, fellow Kiwi James Fisher-Harris and Fijian superstar Billy Kikau.

And who could forget coach Cleary’s hyped return over summer from, yep, the Tigers?

Yet only a couple of weeks after GM Phil Gould exited in contentious terms, the Panthers are sliding like bald Datsun tyres on a week night after copping five straight defeats.

Now sixteenth of as many teams.

At which point we could joke about Cleary finally learning what junior footy coaches have understood for years: overseeing a side with your son can be an absolute punish.

But who at Penrith is laughing?

After opening the season as NRL premiership smokeys, and on almost every analyst’s list for top eight, the Panthers are now a side struggling in attack, defence, everywhere.

Which isn’t to say they can’t come good.

They can.

But, geez, it seems some way off.

Originally published as Cleary clan cop horror night as Penrith hit rock bottom in Brisbane