Ivan Cleary has reiterated his desire for Penrith to deserve compensation from the NRL when rivals poach from their junior ranks, as the Panthers prepare to meet Stephen Crichton for the first time.
Canterbury captain Crichton is one of 11 players who have departed the Panthers after winning a grand final in the previous three seasons, and that figure is expected to rise to 14 next year when Jarome Luai, James Fisher-Harris, and Sunia Turuva depart in 2025.
“In my heart I would love all those boys to still be playing here but we’d have about three teams then, so you can’t do it,” Cleary remarked.
Rival clubs have pursued Penrith players for their premiership experience, but the opportunity to grab deals from their league-leading youth nurseries has proven equally appealing.\
The Dolphins famously signed Isaiya Katoa as one of their first recruits before the Panthers had the opportunity to play the then-18-year-old in first grade, and he has since matured into an NRL-caliber halfback.
Mason Teague, Luke Hanson, Keagan Russell-Smith, and Delahia Wigmore are among Katoa’s 2022 SG Ball grand final winners who will be playing elsewhere in 2024.
Jett, Cleary’s teenage son, became the latest junior Panther poached when he signed with the Warriors in 2025 last month.
Cleary was thinking about the revolving door of players before the Panthers’ opening game against three-time championship winner Crichton on Friday evening.
The coach did not expect to be rewarded for losing NRL talent, but he shared Penrith’s long-standing concerns about rivals plundering their nurseries.
“I think we should get dispensation, probably more in a development sense,” he remarked.
Privately, Penrith management would support a strategy that financially rewarded NRL clubs for investing in remote areas, as the Panthers have done successfully in western NSW.
Under the scheme, teams would receive varied grants based on the level of development they were pursuing regionally.
When quizzed this week, Cleary did not provide a means of compensation, but he did not believe it should be included in the wage cap.
“We develop a lot of players here that end up elsewhere, so I feel like we should get looked after more by the NRL in that space, apart from the salary cap and how it all works, it’s hard to argue with,” he said.
“But I do think we should be compensated in some way for the amount of players we’ve developed and the status they’ve become throughout the league.”
Turuva said Crichton had been taunting him via text message since last week in preparation for their round-10 match.
“This guy’s already been playing mind games with me,” he remarked.
“He’s been killing it, skipper over there, so it’ll be a good competition.”
Brian To’o, a Panthers winger, has been looking forward to his first game against Crichton, who is both his son’s godfather and wife’s cousin.
“The first thing I thought of at the start of the year was playing the Doggies,” he remarked.
“I think I speak for the majority of the boys, wherever the boys go, we still support them through and through.”
