Peter V’Landys praises Nathan Cleary’s recovery from TikTok drama
Penrith Panthers ace Nathan Cleary is amongst the favourites for the Dally M Medal, but it could have been very different following a scandal-ridden start to the year.
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As Nathan Cleary prepares to kick off the biggest week of his young life at Monday night’s Dally M awards, Peter V’landys has handed Penrith’s star playmaker huge praise for the “enormous strength of character” Cleary showed to fight back after his TikTok controversy.
“A lesser person could have crumbled,” V’landys said of the pressure Cleary was under when he was caught out breaking social distancing laws during the COVID shutdown.
Cleary on Sunday also opened up on why the drama had helped him work harder than ever before, saying: “I didn’t want to wreck what we’d already built.”
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At the time there were fears Cleary’s $30,000 fine and two-match suspension could derail the Panthers’ season.
But instead of buckle, Cleary rose to the challenge to lead Penrith on 17-match winning run that has taken them all the way to the NRL grand final.
And on Monday night the 22-year-old will also go into the Dally M awards as the raging hot favourite to win the game’s highest individual honour.
“Everything is a mark of character,” V’landys said.
“He went through some terrible publicity and he showed enormous strength of character.
“I think the way he has handled himself since then has extinguished, in my mind, the lack of awareness.
“He is a young kid and that’s what you do when you are a young kid. You try and have a good time.
“It was just a lack of awareness.”
There were genuine concerns at the time about how Cleary would cope with the added pressure.
But such has been his astonishing form this season, he is now being rated up with the game’s biggest superstars such as Cameron Smith and James Tedesco.
“He was really down at the time,” V’landys added.
“I was proud of him in the sense that he showed magnificent character to put it behind him. It is a real inspiration.”
Cleary himself said he deeply regretted his mistake but was just thankful he now has the chance to live every young footy player’s ultimate dream.
“Obviously with what happened in the COVID break, I was just so disappointed with myself,” Cleary said.
“It just went against what I am about and my values. If I could take it back I would. I regret it so much.
“But in saying that I couldn’t change it.
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“The only thing I could do was better myself going forward, and I felt like I owed it to the team and the club.
“They all stuck by me and showed me so much support. I didn’t want to wreck what we’d already built. I just wanted to let my footy do the talking and give it back to my teammates.”
Cleary said he wasn’t getting carried away with his chances of winning the Dally M Medal but it was just an honour to be in the running.
“It would be pretty crazy,” he added.
“Obviously growing up you watch them. You see some unbelievable players that have won them. Just to be kind of mentioned that I am a chance to win has been pretty crazy. It is pretty surreal.
“I never would have thought it would kind of come this early but it would obviously be cool. I haven’t thought about it too much. The main goal for me is to win a premiership but if I was to win the Dally M it wold be pretty cool.”
DALLY M MEDAL ADDS TOUCH OF HOLLYWOOD
Rugby league will head to Hollywood by way of a galaxy far, far away with cutting edge technology to deliver a Dally M experience unlike any other in the game’s history.
With COVID-19 forcing a change to the regular Dally M Awards, Fox League will employ new hologram technology to create a virtual world for rugby league’s night of nights.
Lifesized holograms will be projected next to hosts Yvonne Sampson, Lara Pitt, Jess Yates and Hannah Hollis to recreate the usual awards experience as closely as possible.
“We’ve engaged a company called Big Picture who have used this technology with Disney before on Star Wars: The Mandalorian,” Fox League executive producer Jamie Lockyer said.
“They use a camera technology called Red Spy and it’ll allow us to put a coach or a player on greenscreen in one area and beam that person into a virtual world.
“We’ve done a lot of player interviews this year over Zoom or Skype and it’s very two dimensional.
“Doing it like this, in a 3D virtual world — and the word virtual gets thrown around a lot, the Emmys and a lot of other awards shows say they’re doing a virtual awards show.
“But essentially that’s just prerecorded messages from people over Zoom. If we’re going to call it virtual we really want to make it virtual.”
The technology has been used for the Winter Olympics and during this year’s US Open but will be making it’s Australian debut at the Dally M’s.
For the first time, Fox Sports will fire up all three of its studio’s in order to bring the awards show to the viewers like never before.
“It’ll make it different and really special — we always try to make these events different, better and special,” Lockyer said.
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“With COVID-19 we were looking for a way to make the Dally M’s more of a TV broadcast rather than an event as we’ve done in the past.”
The awards will begin at 6:30pm on Monday with a special edition of NRL360 before the main ceremony kicks off at 7:30pm.
Penrith halfback Nathan Cleary has been tipped to take home the main prize after leading the Panthers to the minor premiership.
Originally published as Peter V’Landys praises Nathan Cleary’s recovery from TikTok drama