Penrith Panthers head coach Ivan Cleary has spoken out about one of the club’s biggest challenges—keeping and attracting top NRL talent.
In recent seasons, Penrith has lost around 11 premiership-winning players to other clubs. According to Cleary, this is because the Panthers are so successful at developing their own stars, many of whom are then poached by rivals offering bigger paydays.
> “We develop a lot of players here that end up elsewhere,” Cleary said. “We should be compensated for how many top players we’ve produced.”
The Panthers have built their success on local talent instead of expensive signings. While this has worked well—leading to several premierships—it’s made it hard for the club to recruit big-name players from other teams.
Because the Panthers focus on development, and have a strict salary cap like all NRL clubs, they often can’t afford to keep the stars they’ve created.
Cleary is now calling on the NRL to consider a system that rewards clubs like Penrith for developing top-level players.
