By Dan Walsh and Billie Eder
After 10 weeks watching from his father’s coach’s box, Nathan Cleary and Penrith needed just three simple plays to send their 16 rivals an inter-office memo.
Good luck.
How else could the pack chasing Penrith’s bid for a fourth-straight premiership - a feat not achieved since the all-conquering St George side of the 50s and 60s - construe Cleary’s latest clutch miracle?
By all rugby league rights, his 45-metre match-winner after returning from a lengthy injury lay-off simply shouldn’t have happened.
Not least when the Panthers were trailing 26-12 against a typically plucky Dolphins outfit with 25 minutes to play.
Or when the Dolphins - despite being down a man - had the better of the first nine golden point tackles, which Cleary and his teammates acknowledged afterwards.
Somewhere underneath all his teammates is Panthers match-winner Nathan Cleary.Credit: Getty Images
“On the third tackle [of Penrith’s first set of golden point] I was thinking there is no way I’m going to have a shot,” Cleary said on Sunday afternoon.
Too right. The Dolphins had taken his extra-time kick-off and peeled off a 50-metre set with Tevita Pangai jnr taking two carries and young half Isaiya Katoa punting long and high to pin fullback Daine Laurie on his own 10-metre line beneath a good kick chase.
As far as golden point starts go, the Dolphins nailed it. And after Penrith’s third tackle of the next set, Izack Tago had been wrestled onto his back only 35 metres from his own line.
Come on down, back-up fullback Laurie and lock Matt Eisenhuth.
For context, Laurie was Penrith’s No.1 because Dylan Edwards is out with a knee injury he played on with during the State of Origin decider.
Eisenhuth played in place of Isaah Yeo in his 12th game of the season, his 46 minutes the most he’s played in any of them.
So that’s two of the best players in the NRL taken out of Penrith’s line-up, only for their cut-price replacements to step up and bring Cleary’s right boot into play.
With his 29th and last run of the match, Laurie pinched 10 metres and put the Dolphins markers on the back foot before producing a quick play-the-ball.
Eisenhuth doubled down with more of the same as Mitch Kenny brought him onto the ball, taking space from the defence after Max Plath was called out of the play for not squaring up at marker.
“Because it’s a kick-off set, ideally you’d love to get down there for a field-goal shot, but it’s sort of just [about] sticking to our structure and playing the set out,” Eisenhuth explained of a typical golden point approach.
“And maybe putting a kick right down in the corner and then you rely on a good defensive set to set it up for the next one.
“But, I guess maybe [because] they had 12 men, I just saw a bit of space in behind the ruck, the play-the-ball before that was pretty quick [from Daine Laurie],” Eisenhuth said.
“So I just ran to the space and made metres, got a low tackle and a quick play-the-ball.”
Eisenhuth’s carry and rapid play-the-ball leaves Connolly Lemuele as the Dolphins only marker and leaves him incapable of pressuring Cleary once Penrith cross halfway.
“We didn’t plan to kick that, but I think just off the back of the fast play-the-ball, me and Nath just had a quick word to each other and just said ‘why not’, because he’s just got that in him,” Kenny said.
What Cleary had was a hamstring that had kept him out for the past 10 weeks and a 45-metre shot at goal.
And a reputation, backed up by what has now become countless match-winning moments, as one of the best clutch players rugby league has seen.
Champion Data figures of the past decade illustrate the obvious, Cleary is one of the most prolific field goal exponents in the game.
Basic rugby league recall provides the context, like Cleary’s last 45-metre, two-point field goal with six seconds left last year against Parramatta, even though the Panthers lost that one in golden point.
Or the halfback’s 2019 after the siren conversion from out wide against the Tigers, followed by a match-winning 40-metre drop punt three minutes later.
Or the greatest individual grand final performance in 2023 the likes of Andrew Johns, Johnathan Thurston and countless others have ever seen.
“I was already running back to him,” Kenny said.
“He reckons I was running at him and he was still watching it go over, but I was pretty confident. I backed him in.”
And given the way Cleary and Penrith get things done, who wouldn’t?