NRL Grand Final 2020: Nathan Cleary intercept pass summed up Panthers’ night
It was the ‘what if’ moment of the Grand Final and it could stay with Nathan Cleary for a long time, a harsh lesson on the game’s biggest stage. Suliasi Vunivalu explains how it happened.
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Suliasi Vunivalu was watching only the hands. Not a natural behaviour, he says. But one learned, and refined, over five seasons in the NRL.
Not that anyone knew. How could we?
Given in those brief seconds before an NRL grand final was effectively decided forever, all of us were watching the same kid we’ve ogled for so much of this season – Panthers No.7 Nathan Cleary.
Which you should know, is who the Storm winger was watching too. Only differently.
“I was watching his hands,” Vunivalu told The Daily Telegraph, still in his playing kit and trying to explain that incredible intercept try with 30 minute gone.
“So I knew it was coming.
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“(At Melbourne) we focus on … ah, I was just watching his hands.”
So coach Craig Bellamy had discussed that moment specifically in the build-up?
“Not really,” Vunivalu said, smiling now. “But experience wise, I’ve been playing wing for five years.
“And we do our (video) preview of the Panthers. So I knew it was coming. That they were going to try a try a trick play.
“Look like (they’re passing to) Viliame Kikau, then instead hit the centre or winger. They know I usually jam in.”
But not this night.
No, instead, Vunivala stayed wide because of what he now tries to explain by motioning with both hands, as if pretending to pass the ball.
“I could see him loading for the pass,” the Storm No.2 continued of Cleary.
“So I knew it was going to the centre. Or the winger. Then when the ball went up, it was floating in the air. So I jumped ….”
Within seconds too, catching, landing, stumbling, falling, righting himself, then away on what would be an 80m run to the tryline – and following the Cam Smith conversion, a 14-point lead
“I just kept running,” Vinalu continued of the try which changed everything. “Usually at times like that I will look back.
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“But I told myself ‘look in front. Keep running’.”
So what chance this Storm flyer had a little, er, help too?
Especially when you notice how, scribbled in blue pen on both those white boots that motored upfield, is the phrase ‘Isaiah 40:31’.
A biblical scripture which reads: But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
“My priest in Fiji gave me that,” Vunivalu explained, pointing to the same phrase written in black texta strapping tape around his left wrist.
“Every time I go home, I ask him to pray for me. Then when I made it big, he sent me that verse.
“Said the Lord had told him to give it to me. He said to always wear it when I play. So I write it onto my boots and my wrist.
“It’s about the Lord giving you strength. It’s something I hold close to my heart.”
Just as the little village of Bagasau, near Suva, does the same for him.
Indeed, from the moment this 24-year-old Fijian took his intercept, some 200 locals gathered in the village hall went nuts.
Which is beautiful yarn for rugby league.
But not so much Panthers fans.
Or Cleary, who afterwards could say only that he’d “let the boys down”.
Especially given by the finish, those six points would not only prove crucial – but the difference.
A moment that with Vunivalu watching only hands, would see Penrith go from attacking a tryline to standing beside their own uprights.
Or high up in the Storm coaching box, Bellamy riding said moment like, say, Pumper Cassidy.
Same deal in Bagasau, where the locals erupted into a screaming, clapping, urging din for their boy who next season is headed for rugby union.
“I’ve got videos in my phone of them celebrating,” Vunivalu revealed proudly. “They had T-shirts made with the No.2 and my name on the back.
“They were sending me stuff before the game. They all meet in the hall. Watch it on the projector. People from all over Suva came.
“I was still in contact with them 30 minutes before we went out”.
Which again is some story, even despite that little rule about mobile phones being banned in NRL dressing rooms, right?
“It’s something I should not have been doing,” Vunivalu grinned. “But I can say that now because I won’t be here next year. So it’s OK. I won’t be in trouble with Craig.”
Originally published as NRL Grand Final 2020: Nathan Cleary intercept pass summed up Panthers’ night