{"id":552949,"date":"2026-03-20T14:14:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552949\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:14:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:14:22","slug":"ivan-cleary-press-conference-after-penrith-panthers-beat-sydney-roosters-dylan-edwards-test-fullback-snub-form-revival-news-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552949\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivan Cleary press conference after Penrith Panthers beat Sydney Roosters, Dylan Edwards Test fullback snub, form revival, news, video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dylan Edwards has rocketed into this season after the heartbreak of losing his Test fullback jersey, Panthers coach Ivan Cleary says \u2014 with ominous messages rife from the four-time premiership winning coach after a 40-4 demolition of the Roosters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Penrith destroyed their supposed fellow title contender on Friday night at Allianz Stadium, with winger Thomas Jenkins a four-try hero \u2014 but the form of Edwards a hot topic after he cleary outpointed reigning Dally M Medallist James Tedesco.<\/p>\n

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Plenty have been fitting up Tedesco to reclaim the NSW State of Origin fullback spot from Edwards, while the Panthers ace lost his Kangaroos No.1 jersey to Broncos megastar Reece Walsh for last year\u2019s Ashes series.<\/p>\n

Playing hurt last season while otherwise in the prime of his career, and after a historic four-year run at club level, it was a bitter blow for Edwards; even taking into account Walsh\u2019s outrageous form spike en route to a premiership of his own.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Edwards ran 131 metres and scored two tries against the Roosters to send an emphatic retort, with Cleary saying that a healthy pre-season was a major factor \u2014 as was his Test snub.<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/p>\n

Unheralded Panther destroys rabble Roosters with stunning four-try demolition<\/a><\/p>\n

\ufeffRobbo quotes Mike Tyson in brutal message to Roosters after thrashing<\/a><\/p>\n

Dylan Edwards of the Panthers celebrates after scoring a try against the Roosters, right under the nose of NSW Origin rival James Tedesco.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was outstanding tonight,\u201d Cleary said post-match of the 2022 Clive Churchill Medallist, who boasts six Test caps and five Origin games.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been good in all three games but tonight was I reckon might have been his best of the year so far. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see it coming in the pre-season. Did it (the Test snub) light a fire? Probably, yeah.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s already mentioned that he felt he landed in last year a little underdone, coming off surgery and sort of just picked up little injuries along the way. Still had a decent year but probably not to Dyl\u2019s standards. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s like a lot of guys in our team, I feel a lot of guys are ready. They\u2019ve trained hard, experience that they know how to get themselves ready and other guys have just sort of followed along.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve prepared well in the pre-season and there\u2019s a lot of guys across the board that are playing well. If you get that, then the scoreboard\u2019s going to look after itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/p>\n

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To’o credits Mary Fowler for solo try | 00:48<\/p>\n

Edwards even had an early flashpoint with Tedesco: the Roosters No.1 was lucky not to be sin-binned after tipping his Panthers rival on his head in an awkward end to an otherwise vanilla tackle. The Panthers scored on the next set and ultimately, Edwardshad the last laugh.<\/p>\n

Nathan Cleary warned that the entire spine had entered the season in far better health, intent on hunting down the club\u2019s fifth premiership in six years. Edwards was coming off shoulder surgery last season, and wasn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still think there\u2019s a long way to go, it\u2019s Round 3 \u2013 but in terms of this point, definitely compared to last year we\u2019re streets ahead,\u201d Nathan Cleary said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur whole spine had surgery last year, so we were probably all a bit underdone and weren\u2019t able to build that combination; where we were able to do that this pre-season. The more we get our legs under us and get a bit of confidence with what we\u2019re doing, the better we\u2019ll get.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘We didn’t threaten them’ Tedesco | 05:20<\/p>\n

Cleary warned that his second-year partnership with young five-eighth Blaize Talagi was developing well, after the former Eels star partnered him off the back of four titles with Jarome Luai in the N0.6.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of reps but it\u2019s probably a feel thing as well, and just sort of being able to understand each other\u2019s games,\u201d Nathan Cleary said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re doing that quite well to start the year. There\u2019s still a long way to go but really enjoying Blaize and I\u2019s partnership beginning to flourish. But a long way to go, it\u2019s been very fun and I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a lot more fun times to come, but good to see those sort of combinations we\u2019ve been working on at training come out on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panthers HAMMER Chooks in Robson debut | 01:49<\/p>\n

Ivan Cleary gave a cool appraisal of his side\u2019s Roosters rout, which came off the back of an 88% completion rate. He wasn\u2019t pleased at conceding a fairly soft opening try to Roosters centre Robert Toia.<\/p>\n

The Panthers are currently leading the NRL not just at 3-0, but with an astonishing 82-10 for and against; conceding below one try per game on average. Yet Cleary\u2019s message was clear: his mighty team can get far better, and his players have more to give.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scorelines and defensive front are really pleasing but I just think we\u2019re putting into action what we trained for in the pre-season. Not just physically, but mentally and the things we want to do. Show up for,\u201d Cleary said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight was far from perfect. I think we started a little slow, I thought the Roosters got the jump on us a bit there, which they can do; they\u2019re quite good at that. Pretty physical, a lot of blokes that are hard to tackle and Toia\u2019s try kind of showed that. But we were just able to manage our way through that and again, midway through the second half they were looking a bit dangerous and we managed our way through that as well and finished the game well defensively. Finished it off really strongly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best part about tonight was just to be able to win and kind of navigate our way through difficult situations. I thought that showed some good signs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenkins TORCHES Easts with 4 Tries | 00:51<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dylan Edwards has rocketed into this season after the heartbreak of losing his Test fullback jersey, Panthers coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,10288,246610,60064,4591,273483,273482,273484,273488,273489,122380,273486,180193,273487,4415,8199,1203,761,762,158,4598,668,13391,4542,30382,87576,85,1080,4499,104568,273485,38392],"class_list":["post-552949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-completion-rate","tag-defensive-front","tag-dominant-win","tag-dylan-edwards","tag-feel-thing","tag-fellow-title-contender","tag-form-revival","tag-four-time-premiership-winning","tag-four-try-hero","tag-fullback-jersey","tag-fullback-snub","tag-fullback-spot","tag-fun-times","tag-james-tedesco","tag-mike-tyson","tag-nathan-cleary","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-penrith-panthers","tag-press-conference","tag-reece-walsh","tag-robert-toia","tag-shoulder-surgery","tag-sides-victory","tag-sports","tag-sydney-roosters","tag-thomas-jenkins","tag-tim-elbra","tag-try-kind","tag-young-five-eighth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552949","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=552949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}