Ivans' new book

[Penrose Warrior]

We're going a bit overboard with the Warriorsball stuff. That team had a lot of workers and non flair players that were doing work to allow the Warriorsball stuff.

And it's not like Cleary's Penrith team doesn't have Warriorball style players.

Yeah no doubt we had workers around them, otherwise it would never have worked.

Who are Penrith's Warriorball style players?

 

[Beavers Headgear]

Yeah no doubt we had workers around them, otherwise it would never have worked.

Who are Penrith's Warriorball style players?

Probably looking at the likes of Sorensen, Garner, Kenny.

Yeo is probably the outlier, getting a Luck style of commitment and leadership with getting the dirty work done, but can put a mountain of skill on top of it that Luck never had

 

[Matiunz]

I think a lot of fans look back at Clearys time with us with revisionist history a bit. The “We coulda had Nathan Cleary and multiple premierships” narrative assumes all things and situations that mold us ate are equal when they are not.
Would Nathan have been the player he was if he came through our systems instead of Penriths? Absolutely not.
The way our club was run was much more comparable to the Tigers and look how Cleary went there… it’s much more likely we would have kept the middling version of Cleary closer to the Tigers and Panthers stint one version rather than the current Cleary.

Whilst relatively consistent and in hindsight better than the Bluey/Elliot/Brown shit show we got after people quickly forget Cleary was relatively limited particularly in his ability to take us to the next level. The game plan was Stack the backline with tacklebot 2nd rowers and Prop wings and our only planned attack was the “Kick to Manu” Hail Mary. Sure he was limited with what he had and arguably made the best of a tough situation, however calls from fans to move him on were also ringing.
People will point to the GF in his final year- early in the year we were shit and it was only the emergence of SJ and some flukes ad lib stuff from the likes of Mateo/Inu/Locke etc that lifted us out of mediocrity and put us on a famous run- ironically Cleary wasn’t a fan of at least 2 of those players and would only play them begrudgingly.
In short people look at what both clearys are now and think that’s what we would have had when the situations that unfolded is what made them what they were and that’s unlikely to have been the version we would of had had we have kept them

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

I think a lot of fans look back at Clearys time with us with revisionist history a bit. The “We coulda had Nathan Cleary and multiple premierships” narrative assumes all things and situations that mold us ate are equal when they are not.
Would Nathan have been the player he was if he came through our systems instead of Penriths? Absolutely not.
The way our club was run was much more comparable to the Tigers and look how Cleary went there… it’s much more likely we would have kept the middling version of Cleary closer to the Tigers and Panthers stint one version rather than the current Cleary.

Whilst relatively consistent and in hindsight better than the Bluey/Elliot/Brown shit show we got after people quickly forget Cleary was relatively limited particularly in his ability to take us to the next level. The game plan was Stack the backline with tacklebot 2nd rowers and Prop wings and our only planned attack was the “Kick to Manu” Hail Mary. Sure he was limited with what he had and arguably made the best of a tough situation, however calls from fans to move him on were also ringing.
People will point to the GF in his final year- early in the year we were shit and it was only the emergence of SJ and some flukes ad lib stuff from the likes of Mateo/Inu/Locke etc that lifted us out of mediocrity and put us on a famous run- ironically Cleary wasn’t a fan of at least 2 of those players and would only play them begrudgingly.
In short people look at what both clearys are now and think that’s what we would have had when the situations that unfolded is what made them what they were and that’s unlikely to have been the version we would of had had we have kept them

100%

What I will concede is that the Cleary era, in very broad terms, looks a lot better in retrospect than it felt at the time. 4 finals appearances in 6 years! Also, if you look at some of the teams we had on paper during those years, they are pretty underwhelming (particularly circa 2007-2008). It looks like a pretty impressive coaching feat in retrospect.

But really what it was, was we just did enough to creep into the finals, and on a couple of occasions (2008 and 2011) we managed to do really well when we got there. Cleary won exactly 50% of his games while coaching the Warriors and I think that is a really accurate reflection of where we were at with him in charge. It never felt like we were priming ourselves for a run at the title. We were always just scraping by, playing conservative, winning 50% of our games and then crossing our fingers and toes once we made the 8.

Also, while we didn't have the strongest squads, Clearly really leaned into that and while I'm not sure what role he played in recruitment, he definitely preferred to select sides full of scrappers and battlers and so I would imagine he would've had a say in recruiting them in the first place. It was years of journeymen pushing themselves to the brink of their talents to scrape together a 50% record because that was the style and the sort of squad Cleary preferred.

 

[Penrose Warrior]

What I will say about the Ivan era is that we won big games. He absolutely always knew how to coach us to beat the top sides, as opposed to the 2023 model of beating everyone from 9 down, and mostly beat 5-8. He had a model that worked a lot of the time - not always - in big games, ie 2008/11 finals, and we regularly beat Melbourne in the regular season, too.

He was also operating in a pretty unprofessional environment, with an arrogant crook for an owner who seems as if he couldn't hide his dislike of Ivan, as well as his dunce sidekick CEO who could sell a jersey or 19 but was the same f**kwit who got charmed by Matt Elliott and thought Bluey over Ivan was a wise move, and couldn't get a deal done with Craig Bellamy even though Bellamy had agreed to come. So you have to factor that in, too.

I truly believe Ivan could have been a premiership winner here. Not a four-peat, that isn't happening in our environment. But if we'd given him a longer tenure, as John Hart pushed so hard for him to be awarded, I truly believe we could have waited out the Manly dynasty as we were our biatches, and jagged one somewhere. The consistency to make four finals in six years (bearing in mind as always we would have made the fifth if not for Mick Watson's bet hedging on Wiki and Price, and the sixth was the year we lost Sonny Fai) I believe would have turned eventually into being in the right place at the right time to win one.

I don't factor Nathan into this. Jett has just come across the Tasman and there's nothing to say Nathan wouldn't have done the same.

Also remember we could have had Ivan in 2017 again but Eric Watson still hadn't found a way to get past his own ego. f**k me, imagine the sliding doors moment that is - not even mostly in terms of us, but the competition?

 

[Thatwasnthighref]

I look back on Cleary's time very fondly.

If we look at individual seasons, or games in isolation, then yea sure some of the wins was maybe by accident than design. You could do that with just about every coach's record at different stages though.

But anomalies tend to even out over time - like Ando and his GF in 09 off Hayne's ridiculous run in the last 10-12 games. They missed the finals the very next year though when Hayne couldn't (unsurprisingly) pull off another miracle.

Ivan's record over 6 seasons takes a lot more than a bit of luck and fortuitous runs of form, and I think his tenure deserves to be considered in a strong light.