\u201cWe\u2019ve seen players be passionate for their states and be passionate for their country of heritage,\u201d Daley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always said that if a player wants to play for NSW, they have to be passionate about doing it, and they can\u2019t be simply ticking a box. If they want to be there, they\u2019ll be considered. Casey is a really good player.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLean, who joined his brother Jesse to help promote the NRL\u2019s multicultural round in Sydney\u2019s suburb of Wentworthville on Tuesday, said he would love the opportunity to be unleashed against the Maroons, and was flattered his name had been mentioned in the conversation.<\/p>\n
Not only can he play left centre, but McLean is just as comfortable on the right side of the field, and even on the wing.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would mean a lot to represent both worlds [New Zealand and NSW] where mum and dad are from, and where I\u2019ve grown up, the schools I played for, the junior clubs I played for \u2013 I was born in Blacktown, and I played with clubs in the Penrith comp \u2013 it would be special,\u201d McLean said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLatrell Mitchell has always played exceptionally well for NSW. \u2018Critta\u2019 [Crichton] is right up there for me. He\u2019s proven himself to be the greatest centre in the game right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Panthers were weighing up whether to allow Crichton to exit the club for the chance to join the Bulldogs, some of the pain was eased knowing McLean was coming through.<\/p>\n
The Panthers have been almost flawless in the opening two rounds, conceding one try. They\u2019ve enjoyed plenty of success on their left edge with McLean, back-rower Isaiah Papali\u2019i, five-eighth Blaize Talagi and winger Thomas Jenkins working well together.<\/p>\n
McLean said defence had been the primary focus in the opening rounds, and the success was being driven by co-captains Isaah Yeo and Nathan Cleary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019ve seen players be passionate for their states and be passionate for their country of heritage,\u201d Daley said.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-545917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545917","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=545917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}