‘I barely slept’: The Blues won comfortably. But something haunted Nathan Cleary

The majority of the Blues slept easily on Wednesday night after their hard-fought victory in Origin I at Suncorp Stadium took them to within 80 minutes of another series triumph. But Nathan Cleary lay awake thinking of all the goals he missed, rather than the match he won.

The NSW halfback, who has been kicking at 91.89 per cent accuracy in 2025 – the most accurate season of his career so far – missed all three of his conversion attempts in the Blues’ 18-6 victory.

“I’ve been thinking about it all night, I could barely sleep last night,” Cleary said. “But definitely, I guess, a good game to be off with the boot. You know, just the way we performed, it helped. If we had lost, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.

“So, definitely a lot more practice going in, and I won’t let that happen again.”

Cleary did manage to slot the Blues’ one and only penalty goal, which opened the scoring, but missed three conversions thereafter, resulting in winger Zac Lomax taking over the kicking duties.

In the end, Cleary’s misses did not cost the Blues, who scored four tries to Queensland’s one, while Lomax also pulled his one conversion attempt wide. But Cleary conceded he had let the enormity of the occasion get to him by the time he lined up his third attempt.

Nathan Cleary arrives back in Sydney after playing his part in the Blues 18-6 victory over Queensland on Wednesday night.Credit: Janie Barrett

“The first two I probably just misjudged the wind a little bit,” Cleary said. “The third one, I sort of just lost my shit a bit. Excuse my French, but, it’s something to move forward from and learn about – just staying in the process and focusing on that. I probably haven’t had something like that for a while, so I’ll be better.”

Had NSW kicked their conversions, the scoreline would have been a more comfortable 26-6, but Cleary said he was thrilled with the result – especially after losing Brian To’o to the sin bin to start the second half.

“I think we can take a lot of confidence out of that with our defence and our resilience, particularly at the start of that second half when we were down to 12 men and sort of shooting ourselves in the foot a little as well,” he said. “But we managed to defend our own line, and I’m very proud.”

Penrith and NSW teammates Brian To’o and Nathan Cleary after landing in Sydney.Credit: Janie Barrett

Star centre Stephen Crichton, who was cleared to play at the eleventh hour after picking up a quad injury, was immense in the team’s victory, aiding Lomax for one of his two tries.

The Bulldogs skipper said there were improvements NSW could make before game two in Perth on June 18.

“[It’s] very special,” he said. “Big occasion, game one up in Queensland, but the job’s not finished. There’s lessons that we can take out of the game, that we can take into the game two, but exciting times for NSW.”

There were fresh injury concerns for Crichton after he twisted his elbow during the game, but he said the week off should be enough to have him fit and fighting for game two.

“It’s good that our Dogs team’s going into a bye, so we’ve got a long turnaround to look after it [elbow] and get the body ready for power,” he said.

NRL is Live and Free on Channel 9 & 9Now

Michael Chammas and Andrew “Joey” Johns dissect the upcoming NRL round, plus the latest footy news, results and analysis. Sign up for the Sin Bin newsletter.