The NRL has backed the decision to penalise Penrith in a match-defining moment on Thursday night as drone footage shows Harry Grant had to run through Moses Leota to get to Nathan Cleary.
An unimpressed Cleary accused Melbourne skipper Grant of “playing” for a penalty as the Storm triumphed against the Panthers in an epic meeting between premiership powerhouses.
The Penrith skipper thought he had kicked the winner in the 77th minute, only for referee Ashley Klein to rule Leota had blocked Grant’s path as he tried to get to Cleary.
Cleary immediately called for a captain’s challenge and said there was nowhere else Leota could have stood.
There was a lot of backlash on social media, including a post from Nine commentator Phil Gould, that highlighted Grant flapping his arms in the air and rolling on the ground once he made contact with Leota. It appears Grant goes out of his way to run to the other side of Leota rather than directly at Cleary.
But footage obtained by this masthead proved there was no other route Grant could have taken to deny the Panthers.
Under the NRL rules, a referee can rule on an obstruction if any player “takes up a position near the play the ball and, in the opinion of the referee, obstructs a defender(s), regardless of whether there is physical contact”.
Had the Panthers not been sanctioned on this occasion, who was to say they would not try to have two players blocking the path to Cleary the next time, one official speaking on the condition of anonymity asked.
The 22-18 loss meant the Panthers’ nine-match winning streak came to an end, and Cleary could not hide his frustrations with Grant’s gamesmanship.
“Essentially, Harry played for it because he knew he was going to get the penalty,” Cleary said.
“I don’t think Moses moved at all. It was pretty frustrating.
“I know that’s a common cliché, but is he then meant to run through, but if he does, he’s a chance of taking people out.
“Do we expect him to get all the way behind the ball? But then we’ve got nobody to run it. I don’t know. It’s a split-second thing. I’m calling the ball to take the field-goal, Moses is there to take a run, and he didn’t move.
“At the end of the day, we did enough bad things to ourselves and lost that game.”
Grant said what he did was within the rules, and “even the Penrith boys were aware of it in the game, and when it happened”.
“Everyone understands you’re not allowed to be in that position. It’s a hard one, but it’s what has been policed throughout the season,” Grant said.
“Penrith have played in a fair few contests where they have kicked field goals. Maybe we need to have a look at their set-ups. Have they got no one in front of Nathan?”
The match went to golden point, and Grant threw a dummy before he strolled over the tryline untouched, a play he first performed against the Eels in 2024, and one that was raised with him by Herald colleague Roy Masters.
“I had lunch with Roy Masters and he said, ‘Where are you playing?’, and I said, ‘CommBank’,” Grant said.
“He said, ‘ahh, that’s where you were pretty sneaky and scored a try during golden point against Parramatta.’ I guess he put it into my head.”
