The pair were also split on the coach of the year despite both agreeing that Raiders boss Ricky Stuart deserved to win after guiding his side to the minor premiership. <\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve gone Madge, just because he\u2019s had to deal with a lot,\u201d Johns said. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy temptation is to say, Ricky\u2019s going to win it. I\u2019m certain he\u2019ll win it. He will. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I just look at Madge and he\u2019s had to deal with a lot of criticism.<\/p>\n
Brisbane stars aiming for GF redemption | 02:26<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had pressure from the ex-players, all that sort of stuff, but he\u2019s got them through.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, Cronk believes Stuart deserves the honour with Panthers coach Ivan Cleary close behind, given where his team came from early in the season. <\/p>\n
\u201cI say Ricky does, I think they were the best team throughout the year,\u201d Cronk said. <\/p>\n
\u201cFell over at the back end, but they were good. They lit up our screen every weekend the way they played. <\/p>\n
Ricky Stuart is Cronk\u2019s coach of the year.Source: The Daily Telegraph<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Honourable Mention needs to go to Ivan Cleary. If he had have got to the grand final from last after 12 rounds and didn\u2019t even look like the Penrith of old, whatever he and that leadership group did to get back to seventh spot, ultimately win a couple of finals and go within a whisker of another grand final. I think he deserves a big ovation.\u201d <\/p>\n
Johns commended Cleary for his class after the loss to the Broncos. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what, geez he was all-class after the game,\u201d Johns said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought yesterday I mean, they\u2019ve won four in a row, I understand, but he was very classy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cronk warned the Panthers would be back in 2026 after a comment from Cleary post game. <\/p>\n
\u201cI like when the question came, what does it feel like the dynasty is over and he said, what\u2019s over? What are you talking about?\u201d Cronk said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith that one comment, I\u2019m like, they\u2019re going to be back.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cNo doubt,\u201d Johns agreed. <\/p>\n
Bellamy continues to revive players | 01:57<\/p>\n
Johns and Cronk were also split on rookie of the year with the former going with a Warriors forward. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy rookie of the year is Leka Halasima, I thought he\u2019s been good,\u201d Johns said. <\/p>\n
However, Cronk believes a Roosters flyer deserves the honour. <\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t go past that, but Mark Nawaqanitawase for me,\u201d Cronk said. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrom where he was to what he did at the back end of the year, he became a try-scoring machine. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou could put probably two or three of his tries this year as up for try of the year. Like the athleticism and the high-end skill to finish tries. Brilliant year.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matty Johns and Cooper Cronk were divided in picking their player and coach award winners for the 2025…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,689,107828,45716,115393,11101,8089,115392,21683,22033,763,11288,5098,4415,4746,18740,18656,6407,16695,677,14871,13390,13391,7291,115331,85],"class_list":["post-178940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-award-winners","tag-back-end","tag-consistent-player","tag-cooper-cronk","tag-craig-bellamy","tag-cronk-award-winners","tag-ezra-mam","tag-final-show","tag-fox-league","tag-grand-final","tag-ivan-cleary","tag-james-tedesco","tag-mark-st-john","tag-matty-cronk","tag-matty-johns","tag-michael-maguire","tag-minor-premiership","tag-oceania","tag-panel-chat","tag-payne-haas","tag-reece-walsh","tag-ricky-stuart","tag-rugby-call","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}