NRL grand final: Nathan Cleary’s quiet world revealed

The Panthers skipper is arguably the great rugby league player of all. Chasing an incredible fourth straight premiership. Who is he? Cleary takes us into his world … which he admits is a small one.

Panthers skipper Nathan Cleary greets fans during a fan day at BlueBet Stadium in Penrith. Picture: Getty Images

Two boys on the hill at Penrith Park.

First Boy: “Wish we could play a game of tackle.”

Second Boy: “Why can’t we?”

First Boy: “Because we don’t have a ball, genius.”

Second Boy: “We can use this.”

He whips off his right shoe.

Torpedo passes it to his mate.

Hits him on the chest.

First Boy: “Genius!”

*

It’s the Penrith Panthers’ fan day. First Boy and Second Boy are having a fine old time. Second Boy’s only frustration is trying to kick for touch. He shanks it because, well, he’s trying to kick a shoe while not wearing a shoe. First Boy and Second Boy stop their game when Nathan Cleary appears on the pitch. When I say Cleary has a ball in his hands, he ALWAYS has a ball in his hands.

It’s fascinating. When Cleary is listening to his coaches, chatting with his teammates, wandering around by himself, lost in his little world, as usual, which he will expand upon shortly, he’s always cradling a ball or spinning it between his fingertips. The Panthers do 30 minutes of drills in front of thousands of spectators and Cleary cannot walk past a stray ball without picking it up and toying with it.

Nathan Cleary during the Penrith Panthers’ fan day and open training session at BlueBet Stadium this week. Picture: Jonathan Ng

He gives it a little kick. Or launches into a massive kick. Or throws a large pass. Or unleashes a dummy pass, giggling to himself, then tossing a short pass. When he doesn’t have a ball, he looks agitated and lost. Scrambles for another. Then absent-mindedly and constantly does this party trick where he underarms the ball forward, about a metre, with underspin. It lands on the point required to send it back into the palm of his right hand, like a yoyo on a string.

Genius.

Later, I ask if I’ve imagined his craving for a ball in his hands. At all moments. I ask whether the 26-year-old, 182cm, 92kg, State of Origin-winning, World Cup-claiming, two-time Clive Churchill Medallist, three-time premiership halfback is still like a schoolkid who carries and flick-passes and toe-pokes and grubbers and chip-chases his footy all the way to school.

“Yeah,” he says. “I just really like having one in my hands. It actually feels like I’m at home again and holding a footy … I enjoyed it as a little kid. I enjoy it now. I’ve got footies at home that I constantly walk around the house with. It just feels so normal, holding a footy.”

What’s the yoyo trick? Walk-the-dog, but with a footy. What is that? “I don’t remember when I started doing it but it’s just a thing I do all the time now,” Cleary says ahead of Sunday night’s grand final against Melbourne Storm.

“Like I say, I’ve got a few footies at home and if I see one, I pick it up and walk around the house with it like a little kid. I think it helps with mental rehearsal. Just having a footy in your hands and picturing things that might happen in a game.”

  *

SHY AS A DAFFODIL

Cleary is quiet as a whisper. Shy as a daffodil. He could turn up to the grand final in one of those T-shirts saying, “Introverts Unite. We’re Here, We’re Uncomfortable And We Want To Go Home.” Where will Cleary be on Sunday evening? Accor Stadium. Where will he really be? Where he always is. In his own little world.

Cleary at Circular Quay this week. Picture: Richard Dobson

An introvert? “Yeah,” he grins sheepishly. “Honestly, I could have the most enjoyable day not even leaving the house. You know what I mean? Just being able to have a day there to just chill and not talk to anyone. I think (an introverted nature) helps because I don’t really like going and seeking the attention and stuff like that. I think it just helps with me being able to turn off social media and not even worry about it. Just being able to be in my own little world.”

And does it help in the organised chaos of a game of footy as big as this one? Because you’re used to doing your own thing in real life, is it completely natural to keep doing your own thing in a game of footy? “I’ve never thought of it like that – but it makes sense,” Cleary says. “I do sometimes feel like – when you’re out on the field, I don’t know, sometimes it feels like there’s not even a crowd there, to be honest. It just feels like us versus them.”

*

NATURAL

Cleary puts a ball under his arm as naturally as a surfer does his board. Grabs one like it’s his phone. Grabs another like it’s his house keys. Like a football is part of his everyday existence. I bet at least once, as a boy, he cuddled up to one for a good night’s sleep. He picks up another as cleanly as you might a four-leaf clover. He spins it like a Harlem Globetrotter. He holds it with one hand. Flings a hard pass with two hands. Hoiks another ball straight up and catches it on his chest. Despite his neatly-trimmed moustache, the Roger Ramjet-scale chin and the muscular build, you can totally imagine a boyish Cleary carrying a well-worn, dog-eared ball through the front gates of St Dominic’s College back when his old man, Ivan, was first coaching the Panthers.

Nathan was born in 1997. Ivan was playing for the Sydney Roosters. In 2006, the family pitched their tent in Auckland so Ivan could start his coaching career with the New Zealand Warriors. Little did he know his most important player would be the one at his breakfast table. Nathan grew up around football, and with footballs all over the house, and with probably a few footballs in his cot, and with perhaps a couple of footballs under a couple of Christmas trees. Nathan was raised on a diet of football, with lots of talk about football, and lots of weekends spent at football games, and mixing with lots of footballers in lots of dressing rooms when he went to say g’day to Dad after a game.

Which must be advantageous now. His football-dominated adult life is merely an extension of his football-dominated childhood. He’s been in more change rooms than classrooms. “Maybe that helps a bit,” he says. “I was always considered to be Ivan’s son. Now he reckons he gets called Nathan’s Dad, so it’s come full circle there, which I have a laugh about.

“I think it’s probably conditioned me in a way. I also think Dad has sort of conditioned me, too, in always staying true to my values, no matter what happens, and just keeping that humility through everything. Mum (Rebecca), too. She’s definitely the rock of the family and keeps everybody sane.”

GROUNDHOG DAY

The Panthers’ fan day is the biggest Groundhog Day since Bill Murray kept waking up to Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe” at Punxsutawney’s Cherry Street Inn. We’ve assembled here on grand final Tuesday every year for the past five years. Always the same ebullient, family-orientated vibe. Doughnuts in kids’ mouths; doughnuts in the car park. More mullets than the Pacific Ocean. Someone is doing a roaring trade in Crocs, socks, Panthers jerseys and bucket hats. A girl in sparkly cowgirl boots has CLEARY stamped on the back of her electric pink jersey. “He’s cute!” she squeals. “He’s the only boy I like right now – but I know I’m only young.”

Young lady, you’re a genius for your self-awareness. The Panthers were beaten 26-20 by the Storm in the 2020 grand final, the first of their five consecutive premiership deciders, but they were only young. Some of these kids on the hill might have been in Year 8 when they attended the first Groundhog Day Now they’d be doing their HSC. A whole army of teenagers, including First Boy and Second Boy, have grown up watching Cleary and the Panthers dominate the NRL. Monsters’ ball.

Here’s the drill for Cleary. When his Panthers and NSW State of Origin teams win, he receives the lion’s share of credit. When they lose, he cops all the heat. He’s the playmaker, the biggest money-maker, a cool $1.3 million in his pocket each season, and so the buck stops with him. Which complicates his attempt to do what he really wants. To grab a ball and run, catch, kick, or pass with the innocence of youth.

He’s up against the Storm on Sunday night but also the weight of history. The enormity of the stakes, in a historical context, is mind-blowing. Cleary’s Panthers are already one of the greatest sides in the code’s 116-year history. Eastern Suburbs (1911-1913; 1937;1937), Balmain (1915-1917); South Sydney (1953-1955), Parramatta (1981-84) and these blokes (2021-2023) have all won three straight premierships. If the Panthers get up again, they’ll join Souths (1925-1929) and St George (1956-1966) as the only four-time winners. One of the three finest dynasties we’ve ever seen. Cleary will leap towards confirmation as the best player of all time.

“It’s different now, obviously different, in that there’s more pressure involved and it’s definitely more about winning,” Cleary says. “But I constantly remind myself to smile and enjoy it because this is what I’ve grown up loving to do. Once the joy is out of the game it’s like, what’s the point? Know what I mean? You want to be enjoying it. Game day should be the funniest day of the week. There’s probably been periods through my career where I’ve been putting too much pressure on myself. Which hasn’t made it enjoyable. I’ve sort of been dreading the nerves. Now it gets to game day and I’m like, ‘This is the fun part.’”

IT’S COMPLICATED

How to ease the pressure? Cleary’s coming off a horribly complicated season. Hamstring and shoulder injuries have restricted him to a mere 12 matches. Something’s up with his right hand or wrist. How to get through this year’s months of injury-forced inactivity? How to stay compos mentis when you’re the main man in the suffocating, potentially insufferable build-up to a grand final?

Cleary with his per cavoodle called Prince

“I do it in different ways,” he says. “Sometimes I do it through journaling and just being able to catch my thoughts there. Sometimes it’s human nature with the nerves and the pressure and I can feel a bit anxious. But once I get out there, it always sort of feels like home.”

His own little world. His real home is inhabited by a pet dog called dog Prince. Who sounds like a canine equivalent of Macy Gray singing, “When I see you, I’m gonna love you all over the place … when I see you, I’m gonna kiss you all over your face.”

With a comical and endearing sincerity, as though Prince has two legs instead of four, Cleary says of his pooch: “Yeah, he’s been keeping me company in the down times this year. To come home to someone who doesn’t care who you are or what you do or what you’re playing or the mood you’re in – he’s been great. He doesn’t say much, he just licks my face.”

Which brings us to Mary Fowler … kidding. “I’ve been lucky, particularly with the shoulder injury, I came home and my mind was just all over the shop. I had Prince and my girlfriend here, so they were both great for picking me back up.”

HOME SWEET HOME

Cleary and girlfriend, Matildas star Mary Fowler. Picture: Instagram

Introverts unite. There’s one in the NRL grand final, but the prince of Penrith will be comfortable and willing to wait a while to go home sweet home. He doesn’t do a heck of a lot of interaction with the fans on the day I visit the club. Not because he doesn’t care. He does. It’s more because he seems to take a sec takes to realise he’s surrounded by thousands of people, mostly children on school holidays screeching his name, including the little girl who thinks he’s the only likeable boy in the world. At one point Cleary looks up at the masses with an expression of, “Oh, wow! Where did you lot come from?!”

LIVING FOR FOOTY

Cleary and a football. Endlessly fascinating. I could watch it all day. He does 40/20s, 20/40s, makes it do 360s. When he dispatches one ball with hand or foot, he immediately fetches another. He makes five out of eight field goal attempts from 30m in front of the uprights. Those three misses are unusual. He’s at 62.5 per cent when it doesn’t matter; the moneyman is closer to 100 per cent when a contest is on the line. “Big games and big moments, and doing what you can for your teammates, is what you live for as a footy player,” he says.

Two boys on the hill at Penrith Park.

First Boy: “Want another game of tackle?

Second Boy: “Nope.”

First Boy: “Why not?”

Second Boy: “Can’t be bothered taking my shoe off.”

First Boy: “Why didn’t you bring our ball?”

Second Boy: “Forgot.”

First Boy: “Did you get a photo?”

Second Boy: “Yep.”

First Boy: “Who with?”

Second Boy: “Cleary.”

First Boy: “Genius!”

Second Boy: “Who? Me or him?”