Nathan Cleary takes blame for loss as Sea Eagles stun Panthers 18-10 in Penrith
PENRITH’s premiership hopes have taken another hit after they suffered an 18-10 loss to the 14th-placed Sea Eagles at Panthers Stadium.
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IN the space of a week, Nathan Cleary has experienced the highs and lows of rugby league.
It started with the joy of winning his maiden State of Origin series and finished with the devastation of costing his club a chance of victory.
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Cleary has taken full responsibility for Penrith’s 18-10 loss to Manly after he was sent to the sin bin for a professional foul on Daly Cherry-Evans at a crucial stage of the game.
With the scores locked at 10-all with 15 minutes remaining, the NSW playmaker was given his marching orders for the first time in his career after tackling the Sea Eagles skipper without the ball.
The Panthers were reduced to 12 men and the momentum swung towards the visitors.
With Cleary in the sin bin, Trent Hodkinson slotted a penalty goal and then scored the match-winner when he accepted a spectacular offload from Jake Trbojevic to give the Sea Eagles their fifth win of the season.
It was a giant blow to Penrith’s premiership aspirations. Not only did they suffer consecutive losses for the first time this season, it was their first defeat at Panthers Stadium in 307 days.
“That pretty much sums up rugby league — it’s a massive rollercoaster,” Cleary told The Sunday Telegraph.
“I let the boys down. We were down on their line and I dropped the ball, and then they came down our end and I gave away that penalty and 10 in the bin. It was a massive momentum swing and I ultimately cost us the game.
“It was kind of a reaction thing. The refs said I changed my angle but I don’t think I changed my angle, it was just a reaction where I stuck my arm out. That’s how they adjudicate it these days and unfortunately it was me in this situation.”
The Panthers will be without their Origin stars next Friday night against the Warriors, and could now be missing star forward Viliame Kikau, who left the field late in the game with a knee complaint.
The Fijian representative was in severe pain after the game, but Panthers coach Anthony Griffin is optimistic it’s not a long-term injury.
“Hopefully it’s just a really bad cork on the top of the knee,” Griffin said.
“He caught a guy’s head as you would’ve seen on the vision. The doctors are pretty optimistic there’s no structural damage — he’s just got a really heavy bump. He’s in a bit of pain there, so we’ll have to assess him over the next couple of days.”
The Sea Eagles also had their injury concerns with playmaker Dylan Walker suffering a knee injury in his first game back after missing six weeks with a broken jaw.
“Not too sure [how bad the injury is],” Manly coach Trent Barrett said.
“He had to come off, so it’s not too good.”
Sea Eagles winger Matt Wright succumbed to a shoulder complaint when he spectacularly dived to score a try early in the second half.
With a dozen players backing up from last weekend’s representative round, both sides looked rusty and handling errors marred the 80 minutes. The home side completed at just 68 per cent, while the Sea Eagles completed at 71.
The Sea Eagles scored three tries to one to record their first win in Penrith since 2011.
MANLY 18 (T Hodkinson J Thompson M Wright tries T Hodkinson 2 D Cherry-Evans goals) bt PENRITH 10 (D Watene-Zelezniak try J Maloney 3 goals) at Panthers Stadium. Referee: Gerard Sutton, Matt Noyen. Crowd: 12,755.
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