Four-time premiership winner Ivan Cleary will step down as Penrith coach after the 2027 season, to be replaced by his assistant Peter Wallace.<\/p>\n
Cleary fronted a press conference on Wednesday to announce he would not sign a new deal at the Panthers, bringing the curtain down on the greatest modern-day dynasty in Australian rugby league.<\/p>\n
The 55-year-old said he had wrestled with the decision for the last 12 months, but ultimately felt the time was right to end an NRL coaching career that began in 2006.<\/p>\n
“It’s a decision that I obviously haven’t taken lightly but that I’ve thought about for quite a long time,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Part of being a coach and a leader is you kind of gain an intuition over many years, and I feel really strongly that this is the right time for me to step aside.”<\/p>\n
Cleary will not consider future NRL club jobs, but is open to coaching at representative level and will remain involved with the Panthers in an advisory role.<\/p>\n
A veteran of 240 NRL games, Wallace will take on his first NRL head-coaching role after serving on Cleary’s staff since 2023.<\/p>\n
He is currently the Panthers’ defensive coach and is a popular figure with the playing group.<\/p>\n
“I know I’ve done the right thing because the cheer they gave when ‘Wal’ got the nod almost took the roof off,” Cleary said.<\/p>\n
Cleary’s decision is set to have major ramifications on the powerhouse club’s roster for the years to come.<\/p>\n
His son and the club’s halfback Nathan is also off contract next season, along with captain Isaah Yeo and representative back-rower Liam Martin.<\/p>\n
The Panthers’ difficult task to keep their stars in-house has been compounded by the looming arrival of the PNG Chiefs, who can offer tax-free salaries from their inaugural 2028 season.<\/p>\n
The Penrith coach, in his second stint at the club, has built the most dominant team of modern times.<\/p>\n
He was the head coach of the New Zealand Warriors from 2006 to 2011, becoming the club’s longest-serving coach at that time and leading them to the 2011 NRL Grand Final.<\/p>\n
Cleary left Wests Tigers at the end of 2018 to coach his son and while they missed the finals in their first season together, the Panthers have only tracked upwards.<\/p>\n
They won the minor premiership in 2020 and were beaten in a grand final by Melbourne before claiming four straight premierships between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n
Penrith lost to eventual premiers Brisbane in last year’s preliminary final.<\/p>\n
Cleary’s men have tasted defeat just once so far this campaign and sit top of the table heading into a Magic Round meeting with St George Illawarra on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“This is not a time for thank yous or reflections, I still have 18 months in the saddle, so to speak. I honestly woke up this morning thinking about the Dragons and how we’re going to beat them this week,” Cleary said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four-time premiership winner Ivan Cleary will step down as Penrith coach after the 2027 season, to be replaced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,111,139,577,69,213],"class_list":["post-425307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-australia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nrl","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}