Nathan Cleary shoulder injury blow flips premiership race on its head

The Panthers’ hunt for a fourth straight premiership has suffered a monumental blow after Nathan Cleary left the field late against the Storm.

It's the last thing Panthers fans want to see. Photo: Fox Sports and Getty Images

The NRL premiership has been thrown wide open after Penrith’s superstar Nathan Cleary left the field early clutching his shoulder in Thursday night’s 24-22 loss to Melbourne at Penrith.

Short of a sudden inexplicable collapse over the last three games of the regular season, the Storm will claim the 2024 minor premiership and will finish the weekend two games ahead with three matches to play.

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The Storm close out their regular season against the Dolphins, Cowboys and Broncos, which should be enough for Melbourne to claim a fifth minor premiership in nine years.

But while it’s a whole new ball game when we hit finals time, the Panthers’ four-peat is under threat after Cleary was forced from the field grimacing in pain after what appeared to be an innocuous tackle with 13 minutes left in the game with the score at 22-all.

It sent the 20,516 strong crowd silent.

“Shoulder injury for Nathan Cleary, hang on a second,” Andrew Voss said on Fox League.

Cooper Cronk added: “This is not good. He has that shoulder strapped, and with pain like that, something has happened. He’s in a lot of discomfort and he knows it.”

It didn’t look good. Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Cleary was in a lot of distress. Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Cleary has only played 10 matches this season due to a hamstring injury, but his father and coach Ivan revealed post-match that it was a recurrence of an injury from the pre-season.

“He hurt it in the pre-season and had some trouble with it earlier in the year and throughout the hamstring issues he’s got on top of it but it’s a recurrence tonight,” Ivan said post-match.

Asked specifically what it was, Ivan said: “I’m not sure, but I’m concerned because it was bad enough for him to come off.

“We’ll organise scans tomorrow and until we get those we’ll be in a better position to see our way forward but it’s obviously a concern.”

Nathan was a forlorn figure in the sheds after game in a short discussion with Ivan, with the halfback heavily icing the shoulder.

Nathan Cleary was in a lot of pain. Photo: Fox Sports

It doesn't look great. Photo: Fox Sports

Asked how Nathan said he was feeling, Ivan said: “He’s in better shape than what he was when he did his hammy. What do you do? It’s just one of those years I think.

“What do you do, it’s just one of those years I think.”

With Cleary off the field, the Storm kicked a penalty goal to move in front eight minutes from time.

Penrith had one final chance to draw level with Dylan Edwards taking a 40m field goal attempt with the final play, but it fell short.

With Matt Jones, NewsWire