Isaah Yeo gives Nathan Cleary update, outlines goals for 2022
Penrith co-captain Isaah Yeo has said that Nathan Cleary is a strong chance of playing in Thursday's season opener against Manly.
Cleary is recovering from a Latarjet procedure that he had in the off-season, following a dislocation of his shoulder during State of Origin.
"He's come out himself and said he's giving himself every chance," he said on WWOS Radio.
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"He's the ultimate professional, if he wasn't like that he wouldn't have played for us at the back end of the year last year, he does everything right and ticks every box,
Yeo said Cleary had been back at full-contact training for a while and had come through surgery with no issues.
"That's the question on everyone's tongue at the moment, is he going to be suitingup for round one? All I know is he's very close. If it's not [round one] it'll be pretty close after that."
Yeo said the shorter pre-season was tough but that everyone was pretty much "fit and firing" in their bid to go back-to-back.
Isaah Yeo and Nathan Cleary in the 2021 NRL Grand Final. Getty
"The motivation we had after the 2020 season, that was a real talking point for that '21 pre-season and obviously that '21 season with the win at the end. You've got to find motivation elsewhere [this time]."
"It's like a drug, you want to get back there - but we all understand, and we're lucky that we're a hard-working group and to get to that point you've got to go through a lot."
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Yeo conceded that the side's attack had waned in the latter parts of 2021, despite the season ending in the best way possible. Scoring more points, he said, had been a priority suring pre-season.
"We base our side on defence and I think over the last two seasons, we're holding up pretty well," he said.
The Panthers scored just six tries (one of which, of course, was an intercept) across their four finals matches, but found a way to win thanks to ferocious defending.
"I thought our attack for the first half of the season was really fluent, I thought everyone was on the same page - it was probably over the Origin period and a few injuries after that, particularly the back half of the year, it was a bit clunky and we'd obviously like to smooth that out.
"We weren't really scoring that many points, it'd be nice to score a few more but I think much of the same defensively - it's something that we pride ourselves on."
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