{"id":907888,"date":"2026-09-27T23:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T23:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/907888\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T23:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T23:14:09","slug":"nathan-cleary-requires-surgery-on-both-feet-after-horrific-nrl-preliminary-final-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/907888\/","title":{"rendered":"Nathan Cleary requires surgery on both feet after horrific NRL preliminary final injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nathan Cleary will require surgery on both feet, with his father Ivan revealing the superstar halfback had been playing on a broken right foot before suffering a compound fracture of his left ankle.<\/p>\n

In the gruesome aftermath to the Panthers’ 22\u201314 preliminary final loss to Newcastle<\/a>, it was revealed Dylan Edwards played through a ruptured PCL, Isaah Yeo a ruptured pec, and Blaize Talagi came off with an Achilles rupture.<\/p>\n

The injuries ultimately cursed the Panthers, who led the Knights 14\u20136 at half-time, and will likely have long-term ramifications for Australia in the end-of-season World Cup.<\/p>\n

Penrith had hoped to get Cleary through Sunday’s game unscathed after keeping him and his injured right foot on the bench for the opening 25 minutes.<\/p>\n

But 10 minutes later the superstar halfback was exiting the field on the back of a medicab sucking on a green whistle, after a hip-drop tackle from Newcastle hooker Phoenix Crossland.<\/p>\n

Crossland was sent off, with Cleary’s ankle also dislocated and his mother, Bec, among those in the stands in tears.<\/p>\n

“He watched the game in the ambulance, but it made him feel worse probably,” coach and father Ivan Cleary said.<\/p>\n

“I went and saw him at half-time and saw the whole crew and my family were in there. That was a bit hard, it was a bit emotional. But the show goes on.”<\/p>\n

Dynasties and destinies swing on Cleary’s horror ankle injury<\/a><\/p>\n

Penrith and Newcastle were going hammer and tongs when Nathan Cleary’s horror ankle injury turned the NRL preliminary final on its head.<\/p>\n

Cleary also confirmed his son had been battling a broken bone in his right foot. Penrith had previously been coy about the nature of a “stress-related bone issue”.<\/p>\n

The Penrith halfback had been in doubt for Sunday’s match in the lead-up, after he limped through the end of their week-one win over the Sydney Roosters.<\/p>\n

“He’ll have to get the other foot done as well because that was broken as well,” Ivan Cleary said.<\/p>\n

“That’s why I was even more emotional with what happened to him because I knew what he went through to get himself right to play today.”<\/p>\n

Beyond their halfback, Edwards was hurt when making a break in the opening half and Talagi limped off with 13 minutes to play.<\/p>\n

Yeo, meanwhile, returned from a ruptured pec to play in the finals. He will now require surgery, with the Kangaroos captain in doubt for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Cleary will require surgery on both feet, with his father Ivan revealing the superstar halfback had been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":907889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[114245,64,63,36393,3899,5098,1203,158,4598,85],"class_list":["post-907888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ankle","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-foot","tag-injury","tag-ivan-cleary","tag-nathan-cleary","tag-nrl","tag-penrith-panthers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907888","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=907888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}