Maroons superstar SENT off in \u2018outrageous\u2019 controversy<\/a><\/p>\nTo describe Cleary\u2019s heroics, Matty Johns used an interesting analogy.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeading up to Kalyn\u2019s dismissal, you could also feel the opinions start to form. \u2018He\u2019s not good enough, great club player but average No. 7 in Origin\u2019,\u201d Johns said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing about Nathan, I\u2019ll talk in gambling terms. The first 60 minutes in these big games, it\u2019s like playing the pokies. In the last 20 minutes, it\u2019s like you\u2019re in the high rollers room and it\u2019s almost like a different game, and when Nathan is in the high rollers room, he\u2019s Kerry Packer. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe just gets it done.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first 60 minutes, he can be forgiven because the forwards had no traction whatsoever. You could have put Andrew Johns, Ricky Stuart, Allan Langer there, they would\u2019ve had no impact. But in the last 20 minutes, like he did in the 2023 grand final, he got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘Daley could have been sacked’ | 03:50<\/p>\n
\u201cThe criticism of Nathan is rubbish. He\u2019s so, so good,\u201d Maroons legend Cooper Cronk added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s moments that only the trained eye see how good some of the plays were in the second half. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was hard playing on the back foot in the first half but in the second half, he went for that 40\/20 which was centimetre perfect in a big moment.<\/p>\n
Then he goes from ballplayer to ball runner mode for the Blues\u2019 third try and then the kick. It was one metre from being good or bad. That kick sits alongside what Tedesco did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the opinion of a couple of former Origin stars, Code Sports journalist Brent Read isn\u2019t yet convinced.<\/p>\n
While praising Cleary\u2019s performance, Read thinks the star half hasn\u2019t yet changed the narrative. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was great, but the monkey isn\u2019t off the back yet. He has to dominate a series, not just 20 minutes. He played good, but he only dominated the last 15 or so,\u201d Read said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about dominating one off games, it\u2019s about dominating a series. That\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about, that\u2019s getting the monkey off the back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Superstar halfback Nathan Cleary shut up several critics with his glittering second half against Queensland on Wednesday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48257,63,689,26501,30195,122364,11101,763,2105,11288,43,4415,108851,6406,70385,673,13392,44,677,340982,340984,13385,7291,340983,340985,20428,670,41,39,42,40,340981],"class_list":["post-700217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-andrew-johns","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-brent-read","tag-cameron-spencer","tag-club-player","tag-cooper-cronk","tag-fox-league","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-grand-final","tag-headlines","tag-james-tedesco","tag-kerry-packer","tag-laurie-daley","tag-match-honours","tag-new-south-wales","tag-new-south-wales-blues","tag-news","tag-oceania","tag-opinions-start","tag-origin-news","tag-queensland-maroons","tag-ricky-stuart","tag-rollers-room","tag-runner-mode","tag-superstar-halfback","tag-sydney","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-underwhelming-performance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700217","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=700217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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