'I'm in awe': Paul Gallen's special praise for Cleary
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I'll tell you what I mean more of Nathan Cleary. Like, I spoke to him before the game last night. I said, mate, you're out for 10 weeks. You've been back for three weeks. You kick a 40-odd-meter field goal to win the game. You score a hat-trick the week after. Last week, you scored the match-winning try. What have you got in store for us tonight? He said I wasn't happy about certain parts of my game the last few weeks. And I said, okay. Anyway, sure enough, few weeks later,

A few minutes to get on the clock, he gets a kick 20 metres in from touch, 15, 20 metres in from touch, whatever it was, and just nails it to put them in front, and then obviously they went on to win the match. Look, I played against Andrew Johns at the back end of his career. Obviously, Cooper Cronk, Jonathan Thurston, two of the best I've played with or seen. Darren Lockyer. I'm in awe of this bloke and what he's doing. At 26 years of age, he's won three premierships already. To play the way he plays and to be able to do the things he does. All them guys I just mentioned, as great as they were,

I don't think they've done what he's doing consistently like he can do it. Every single week he comes up for clutch play. That's four weeks in a row he's come up for clutch play at an extremely important moment in the game to win the match. He's just a genius at 26 years of age. So you're saying he's better than them? I don't know how much better he can get. Well, look, I'm saying all them guys I mentioned are stars. Probably there's probably two or three immortals amongst them.

I just... I don't remember seeing them guys be as... As dominant. As dominant consistently. Consistently. Dominant. Dominant at the right moment of the match. When you need it. When you need it. They were absolute superstars then, Blake. But...

This is four weeks in a row. I think even Joey and Ned have admitted it at the same age. You know what the great thing about him is too? He doesn't appear to have an ego. It's just what you see this week, you see the same next week, the same the week after. There's no lair about him, is there? I'm not saying the other blokes had that about him, but to be that good, you've got to have some...

Some little edge, I reckon. Just got to be a bit different. And I think they probably all knew how good they were, all those blokes. But he is just a great player. Well, this is how it unfolded last night with the match-winning try and Nathan Cleary's performance. That guy plays the ball. Now they shift it out to the right. Here's Dave Lurie again. He opens them up. Lurie comes to the fullback. He's got support in Tungle. Tungle's been tackled.

He gets up and goes again! Tangor scores! Tangor scores! I cannot believe it! 34 points apiece! Cleary, ice in his veins. Cleary steps up, strikes it sweetly over the black dot. They have picked themselves up off the canvas.

And the Panthers are now in front by two. Yeah, Chris Warren calling it all last night. So what a finish it was.