‘He’ll take the field’: No mind games as Panthers boss declares Nathan Cleary a certain starter in grand final

There will be no mind games this week, with Panthers chief executive Brian Fletcher declaring superstar halfback Nathan Cleary “will be playing” in Sunday’s grand final after copping “a little bruise on the shoulder” on Saturday.

Cleary came off as a precaution with a few minutes to go in the preliminary final win over Cronulla after he clutched at his shoulder having just made a try-saving tackle on Kayal Iro.

The chief playmaker missed three weeks after hurting his left shoulder against the Storm in round 24 but has been at his brilliant best in the finals, setting up three tries and kicking a 40/20 in the win over the Sharks.

Cleary said he was fine after the game and even rotated the joint to prove his fitness, with the champion No.7 set to be Penrith’s main man again as they eye a fourth title in a row.

“Nathan Cleary will be playing, there’s no problem with that,” Fletcher said on SEN Radio on Monday morning.

“He’s got a little bit of a bruise on his shoulder, but apart from that he’ll be as good as gold.

“He’ll take the field.

“They (the rest of the squad) are all OK. They’ve all pulled up well, so they’ll get on with the week, they know what to do and they’ve been there before, so it’s all systems go.”

Sunday’s game will be Cleary’s last alongside great mate and long-time halves partner Jarome Luai, with the local junior off to the Wests Tigers in 2025 where he wants to step up as their chief playmaker.

“He’s been a wonderful player and a wonderful servant of the club,” Fletcher said.

“If he has some luck on Sunday, he’ll have won four grand finals and I don’t know how many grand finals he would have won as a kid.

“He goes away now and sets himself up for life with his young family, and that’s a great result for his football career.”

Penrith’s incredible run over the past five years hasn’t been as easy as you’d think with so many stars leaving, and that will be the same in 2025 with Luai, James Fisher-Harris and Sunia Turuva moving on.

But Fletcher is confident their dynasty isn’t about to end thanks to their incredible nursery that has been able to produce quality replacements over the years.

“They’re still only young, they average 26 years of age,” he said of the squad.

“Most teams that win a competition have probably got ageing players and they retire. Our age has always been around 24 – now we’re up to 26.

“We had a retention committee meeting last week and we’ve got our full squad ready for ’25 and most of it done for ’26, so now we’re looking at ’27 and ’28.

“We’re just fortunate to be in that bracket of young players.”