Nathan Cleary’s rugby league box set is complete, with the Penrith star claiming his maiden Dally M Medal after romping to a dominant victory at the NRL’s gala night.<\/p>\n
Unable to attend after his horror ankle injury in Penrith’s preliminary final loss, Cleary accepted Wednesday night’s award from his couch.<\/p>\n
The Panthers champion finished 14 points clear of Cronulla half Braydon Trindall, who was in the hunt until a dislocated shoulder ended his regular season.<\/p>\n
Tamika Upton also claimed her third Dally M Medal as NRLW player of the year, defending her crown from last year when the Brisbane fullback became the award’s first multiple winner.<\/p>\n
Warriors mentor Andrew Webster pipped Justin Holbrook to be the NRL’s coach of the year with finals not counted, while Canberra playmaker Ethan Sanders was rookie of the year.<\/p>\n
But the story of the night was Cleary, who left hospital on Wednesday<\/a> after undergoing emergency surgery on his ankle.<\/a><\/p>\n Despite being the best player of this decade, the Dally M had somehow evaded Cleary due to a run of injuries or suspensions. <\/p>\n But he played 23 games this year, setting up 29 tries and acting as the chief architect of Penrith’s run to a preliminary final. <\/p>\n Cleary led the race for the majority of the year, polling 67 votes ahead of Trindall’s 53 and Panther Dylan Edwards’ 52. <\/p>\n “I can’t thank everyone enough for the messages they’ve sent through and the support I’ve felt,” Cleary said. <\/p>\n “In terms of being able to win the Dally M award, I’m super grateful for that as well.<\/p>\n “I want to start off by thanking all my teammates. None of this would be possible without them. They definitely made me 10,000 times the player that I am.”<\/p>\n Cleary had earlier this year claimed his maiden Wally Lewis Medal, silencing his critics by leading NSW to a 2-1 State of Origin series victory. <\/p>\n The 28-year-old has also won two Clive Churchill Medals to go with his four premierships at Penrith.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Newcastle’s magical run to the grand final was not reflected in the Dally M team of the year, with the Knights having no players in the side.<\/p>\n The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including terror on board an Israel bound plane, and farewell to a famous voice of sport. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n Kalyn Ponga also missed out on captain of the year and Holbrook as coach, with all voting complete at the end of the regular season, when the Knights finished seventh.<\/p>\n Robert Toia and Naufahu Whyte were the two Sydney Roosters representatives named in the side.<\/p>\n In the NRLW, Upton’s win came after she polled six points in the penultimate round and then one point in Round 11 to beat Wests Tigers’ half Raecene McGregor.<\/p>\n The Broncos No.1 is now the clear best player in the women’s game over the opening eight years of the NRLW.<\/p>\n “I’ve still got lots to improve on,” Upton said, with Sunday’s grand final against Sydney Roosters still looming.<\/p>\n “We’ve seen that this year. I have been learning being a sole captain this year.<\/p>\n “We went through a tricky patch this year and I learnt a lot about myself as an individual, but a footy player as well.”<\/p>\n Newcastle winger Mercedez Taulelei-Siala was named rookie of the year, after a season when she scored 13 tries in 12 games. Gold Coast mentor Karyn Murphy won the coach’s medal.<\/p>\n The heart-touching moment of the night came when South Sydney’s Jai Arrow was presented the Peter Frilingos headline moment and the Provan-Summons spirit of the game award for the way he has approached his battle with motor neurone disease.<\/p>\n NRL TEAM OF THE YEAR:<\/p>\n Dylan Edwards, Thomas Jenkins, Herbie Farnworth, Robert Toia, Selwyn Cobbo, Braydon Trindall, Nathan Cleary, James Fisher-Harris, Wayde Egan, Naufahu Whyte, Haumole Olakau’atu, Hamish Stewart, Erin Clark. Coach: Andrew Webster.<\/p>\n NRLW TEAM OF THE YEAR<\/p>\n Tamika Upton, Julia Robinson, Isabelle Kelly, Jess Sergis, Brydie Parker, Teagan Levi, Raecene McGregor, Millie Elliott, Keeley Nizza, Sarah Togatuki, Evania Isa’ako, Shaylee Bent, Olivia Kernick. Coach: Karyn Murphy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Cleary’s rugby league box set is complete, with the Penrith star claiming his maiden Dally M Medal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,577,69,213,3006],"class_list":["post-616786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nrl","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616786","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=616786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}