It’s hard to imagine Ivan Cleary and Sir Alex Ferguson as coaching contemporaries, least of all because their personalities couldn’t be more contrasting.
One celebrated his first NRL grand final win after 30 years trying as a player and coach by turning and calmly shaking his assistant’s hand, the other so volatile his dressing room outbursts were knows as the “hairdryer”, one prompting him to kick a boot at David Beckham’s head. Cleary is barely above a whisper when he talks to his team.
But in the relentless pursuit for an edge in professional sport, Cleary read up on the teachings of the famous Manchester United manager.
Their stories are not dissimilar: good without being great players, an almost immediate path into coaching, setbacks in their early years when they were close to being sacked, or were sacked in the case of Cleary, and then a flood of success on the back of a rich production line of players developed in-house.
But now, trying to become the first team in the NRL era to win three straight titles and the only to do it since Parramatta’s 1981-83 history makers, has Cleary finally got the respect he deserves? And is this now the biggest challenge of his coaching career?
Penrith Panthers coach Ivan Cleary and legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
“He’s not so much motivated by the three-peat, he’s motivated by the chance to constantly get better,” Nathan Cleary told the Herald. “Dad and the rest of this group are process driven, and it’s something we’ve done well the past few years.
“I think he’s more motivated than he ever has been. I think that comes with confidence from winning competitions. He’s definitely more determined than ever.”
The Panthers will start their three-peat campaign in the World Club Challenge against Super League champions St Helens at BlueBet Stadium on Saturday night.
The last four teams to have won back-to-back titles in a unified competition – the Roosters (2018-19), Broncos (1992-93), Raiders (1989-90) and Bulldogs (1984-85) – couldn’t win a third. That won’t stop the Panthers from starting the year as favourites to turn 40 years of rugby league history on its head.
So what are the challenges facing Cleary?
Maintaining motivation
It’s only natural when you scale the mountain not once, but twice, that the fire might dim. That’s just not players, but coaching personnel too.
But after his World Cup stars cut short their summer break to return a week early to fulfil minimum training commitments before the World Club Challenge, Cleary snr is showing no signs of slowing down in 2023.
“I don’t think he has that aura of a Wayne Bennett yet, but I guess with time and more grand finals he will,” says Cleary’s former strength and conditioning guru Hayden Knowles. “And I don’t think he changes too much.
“Everyone thinks he’s very cool, calm and relaxed, but there’s also a fire in him. You see that in [son] Nathan too. There will be no resting on two premierships. Even when they win he used to say a lot, ‘I want to learn when I’m winning’. He’s more than hungry.”
While the last few years have delivered Cleary himself, as well as the Panthers, long overdue title success, they’ve also been a vindication of the methods he started in his first stint as Penrith coach.
“It comes with time to be just so comfortable in your own skin, without any pressure, without any insecurities,” Knowles says. “He’s got to a point where he’s got a whole team and a whole club buying into the values he has. It’s pretty powerful.
Viliame Kikau and Api Koroisau have left the Panthers.Credit:Janie Barrett
“He really does create an environment where people are safe enough to be themselves. Some coaches wouldn’t like Jarome Luai carrying his speakers on the bus. They tell you how they want you to behave. Ivan understands letting them be themselves. He’s very good like that.”
Specials Ks gone, assistants too
First they lost James Tamou, Josh Mansour and Zane Tetevano from a grand final team, then won the competition the next year. Then it was Matt Burton, Kurt Capewell, Paul Momirovski and Tyrone May, then they won the next year again too.
But you sense hooker Api Koroisau and wrecking ball Viliame Kikau are Penrith’s biggest talent drain yet.
“It’s going to test their depth,” league legend Andrew Johns says. “We saw it last year and people were writing them off last year because they lost key players, but that production line keeps finding players to do the job, sometimes even better than the stars they lost.
“But it must be really tough for Penrith, they’ve lost all these young players who they’ve put so much coaching into in that three, or four, or five, years of juniors, and by the time they’re ready to play NRL they lose them.”
And so it is off the field, too.
Cleary’s assistants Cameron Ciraldo and Andrew Webster have taken head coaching jobs at the Bulldogs and Warriors respectively. Ben Gardiner and Peter Wallace have stepped in.
“It’s different and always sad to lose people, especially people who did such a great job for the club,” Nathan Cleary says. “He always speaks highly of them [Ciraldo and Webster], but the people coming in, Peter Wallace and Ben Gardiner, they are both doing a great job and had great careers as well.
New Bulldogs coach Cameron Ciraldo.Credit:Louie Douvis
“I’ve enjoyed working alongside both of them.”
How quickly can the new blood make an impact?
Jack Gibson won three straight titles at the Eels and then left. Parramatta stayed successful. They lost the grand final the next year, and then claimed a fourth premiership in six years under John Monie in 1986.
Michael Moseley made his top grade debut in 1983 and then was a major part of the Eels team which was fighting to maintain their glory days thereafter.
Legendary Eels coach Jack Gibson.Credit:Palani Mohan
The Panthers will be hoping the likes of Sunia Turuva, Zac Hosking, Soni Luke, Lindsay Smith, Liam Henry and Tom Jenkins will add a youthful spark to a new-look squad.
“It’s always great when you get new people because they bring something different to the table,” Moseley says. “It might be as simple as enthusiasm and talking, it might be X-factor … it could be anything. Someone new always brings something new to the team.
“It’s funny because John Monie was softly spoken. He was never a screamer and he was a very collected person. They both portray calmness, and realistically I would say he and Ivan are very similar.”
How will they actually play?
Is there a chance the Panthers revamp their style to stay ahead of the pack?
According to Champion Data, only Melbourne’s Harry Grant had more try assists and line break assists than Koroisau in 2022. With him gone, the Panthers unlikely to use the deception around the ruck as a focal point of their attack this year.
They’ll also have to compensate for a left-side dominant attack which favoured Kikau in 2022. The scored 68 tries on that side of the field compared to 44 on the right.
It’s nothing Cleary hasn’t overcome before.
In Knowles’ podcast Get The Edge which recorded over the summer, it was said Cleary was close to quitting the Panthers after their abysmal start to the 2019 season amid the backdrop of the sex tapes scandal.
“He was a bee’s d— off quitting,” Knowles said. “Can you imagine if he quit and just around the corner was three grand finals?”
Said Cleary in the podcast: “It’s never finished. It’s the infinite game.
“One of my favourite lines is, ‘it’s not a destination’. [Right] now everyone is feeling really good but that level of pride … if our performances start dropping [it won’t be acceptable]. We’ve set the bar pretty high.
“If the community is proud of us, we’ve got to keep it. We’ve got to find new ways to make them even more proud.”
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