“Hopefully he feels the same way tomorrow.
“I thought the boys were very brave… 14-0 down and losing Nat is a pretty big thing mentally, against a great team, I thought we hung in well.”
The Storm left AAMI Park with the competition points after the 30-24 victory, but the gutsy Panthers deserved plenty of applause for pushing the home side to the final whistle.
With Cleary out of the game 21-year-old five-eighth Jack Cole called the shots in just his 13th NRL match, but the youngster rose to the challenge.
Blaize Talagi came off the bench in his club debut to replace Cleary and also held his own.
Melbourne also had casualties, with centre Nick Meaney, suffering a suspected fractured jaw after a collision with teammate Nelson Asofa-Solomona, while winger Grant Anderson limped off with a knee injury.
Despite a second straight loss, Ivan Cleary said his team “couldn’t have tried any harder”.
“There’s lots of things that we sort of didn’t help ourselves throughout the game, there’s clearly a lack of cohesion at times, which is understandable.
“But I thought from a cultural point of view, I thought they were very brave.
“I thought the boys couldn’t have tried any harder.”
Storm coach Craig Bellamy felt his team could have become complacent in the shock absence of Cleary.
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“We had that good start, and then he goes off, and some of the players probably thought … in the back of your mind you find a voice is telling you, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s going to be OK today,’” Bellamy said.
“But they (Penrith) are a really professional team, and they know how to win, and you just can’t do that with them.”
AAP
