{"id":873821,"date":"2026-08-30T12:18:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T12:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873821\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T12:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T12:18:29","slug":"nrl-news-2026-jett-cleary-debut-new-zealand-warriors-move-into-first-ahead-of-penrith-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873821\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Jett Cleary debut; New Zealand Warriors move into first ahead of Penrith Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warriors<\/a> coach Andrew Webster<\/a> has praised the composure of Jett Cleary, who starred on his long-awaited debut. <\/p>\n

Cleary, the brother of Nathan<\/a> and son of Ivan<\/a>, finished with three try assists in the 46-32 win over the Knights<\/a> that helped the Warriors move back to first on the ladder. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jett and Nathan Cleary. \u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Nathan and Ivan were both in the stands, along with the rest of the Cleary family, and would have had mixed feelings as the Warriors leap-frogged the Panthers. <\/p>\n

Post-match, Jett said the debut was \u201ceverything I dreamt it to be\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have such a good group of boys I can play with, this team\u2019s unreal, the forward pack\u2019s unreal, it was just so cool,\u201d he told Fox League.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awesome to be out here at Mt Smart too, a packed house, it was mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleary\u2019s debut came amid a halves injury crisis for the Warriors with Tanah Boyd, Luke Metcalf and Te Maire Martin all out. <\/p>\n

The 21-year-old was targeted by the Knights in attack and missed seven tackles but was well-supported by the players around him. <\/p>\n

Webster explained why the Knights\u2019 tactic wasn\u2019t going to faze his young half. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t look like a debutant around the way he owned the team. He\u2019s a good kid, he works hard,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of Jett\u2019s biggest strengths is how tough he is and how much he competes. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not going to get under his skin or worry him like that. I was really proud of the way the boys stood up for him and had his back and made sure they couldn\u2019t do that to our halfback. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou could obviously hear them yelling his name over the comms and trying to run at him and he stood up to it. I thought the boys stuck up for him at the right time as well, which was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleary\u2019s captain, Mitch Barnett, was equally impressed with the youngster\u2019s bravery in defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he looked like he belonged … he defended really well, (Greg) Marzhew\u2019s not easy to handle and that back-rower (Francis\u00a0Manuleleua) has been causing a bit of havoc on his edges and Jett held his gloves up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he was really composed, it\u2019s hard because his position is a dominant position because of how vocal you\u2019ve got to be, getting people around the park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was up to us to step up around him \u2026 our communication had to pick up around him so he could slot in easier. I was really impressed with him. He was cool, calm and collected and I thought it showed tonight. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jett Cleary of the Warriors with his father Ivan, brother Nathan and family.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s ticked the first one off and he\u2019ll only get better each time he takes the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleary will be a good chance of playing against next week with the Warriors a certainty of a home semi-final, although the minor premiership is still up for grabs. <\/p>\n

The Warriors will play Manly in Auckland next Saturday while Penrith is up against the Tigers in the final match of the regular season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warriors coach Andrew Webster has praised the composure of Jett Cleary, who starred on his long-awaited debut. Cleary,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-873821","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\/873821","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=873821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}