{"id":332657,"date":"2023-09-21T00:58:37","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T00:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=332657"},"modified":"2023-09-21T02:00:27","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T02:00:27","slug":"famous-roosters-ploy-that-could-save-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=332657","title":{"rendered":"Famous Roosters ploy that could save Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"

P\ufeffenrith<\/a> coach Ivan Cleary<\/a> refused to deny the Panthers will copy a 2018 Roosters<\/a> ploy in an effort to hide Jarome Luai<\/a> from Melbourne<\/a>'s enforcers.<\/p>\n

The two teams meet at Sydney's Accor Stadium on Friday night in a preliminary final, five years after the Storm lost a grand final to the Roosters that featured a busted and broken Cooper Cronk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The week leading up to that 2018 premiership decider was dominated by talk of Cronk's shoulder injury, which the Chooks tried to play off as minor but refused to let the superstar halfback be seen by media or opposition scouts.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Big-money flop sums up Roosters 'rollercoaster'<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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When it came to game time, Cronk took the field – albeit wearing the No.21 jersey – but spent almost the entire game floating behind the play, barking orders to his teammates and only really injecting himself at the end of an attacking set.<\/p>\n

\"Cooper<\/p>\n

It was later revealed Cronk played through a broken\ufeff shoulder blade, making his performance instantly famous as he led the Roosters to victory. His feats even featured somehow tackling Storm giant Nelson Asofa-Solomona on the goal line, and getting involved in an awkward scuffle with one-time teammate Cameron Smith, who had attempted to get at Cronk's injured shoulder.<\/p>\n

Luai will take the field for Penrith on Friday, four weeks after dislocating his shoulder and despite Phil Gould claiming it's "a million to one" the Panthers five-eighth will be at full strength.<\/p>\n

Stream every game of the 2023 NRL finals series live and free on<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Again it will be the Storm – including Asofa-Solomona – who will be tasked with targeting the busted shoulder.<\/p>\n

"Probably a fair bit," coach Cleary responded on Thursday when asked how much he expects Melbourne to target Luai.<\/p>\n

\"Jerome<\/p>\n

"He's a big boy. He'll be all right."<\/p>\n

Cleary was then asked point-blank whether he planned to copy the Roosters' Cronk ploy in an effort to hide Luai on Friday night.<\/p>\n

"Can't talk to strategy today boys, you'll have to see tomorrow," he said.<\/p>\n

Given Luai is more of a running five-eighth rather than the controlling halfback Cronk was, it's highly unlikely the Panthers could carry him as essentially an on-field coach and an end-of-set kicker.<\/p>\n

Still, it's a given he will need to be protected somewhat from the inevitable Storm onslaught.<\/p>\n

Gould believes the Panthers will pull a last-minute switch<\/a> and bench Luai to start Jack Cogger, leaving the injured five-eighth on ice until the team needs him late in the game, if at all.<\/p>\n

\"Gus<\/p>\n

Cleary, though, appeared to be miffed at some of the commentary surrounding his playmaker.<\/p>\n

"He was always going to play. This has been coming for four weeks," Cleary said.<\/p>\n

"I've seen a lot of guys at this club do pretty amazing things. That's just the way they like to do it, they like playing.<\/p>\n

"He's trained with us for two weeks. It all feels pretty normal here.\ufeff"<\/p>\n

Luai wasn't the only injury concern at Penrith this week.<\/p>\n

Superstar halfback Nathan Cleary was taken to hospital on Monday after injuring his finger at training<\/a>, before scans cleared him of serious damage.<\/p>\n

\"Injured<\/p>\n

The word out of the Panthers is it was a dislocation, but fans and media were fooled by the Roosters in 2018 and there's every chance Cleary's could be more severe than the club is letting on.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffYou always get some drama… at this time of year. I don't know whether the anxiety levels go up a little bit for everybody," Cleary said regarding his son's trip to hospital.<\/p>\n

"That was just another little dramatic incident, but he's OK.<\/p>\n

"(I felt) a little anxious. But you go back over the years and there always seems to be something like that happen. Luckily the result was good."<\/p>\n

Cleary also confirmed centre Izack Tago will return from injury to play on Friday.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

P\ufeffenrith coach Ivan Cleary refused to deny the Panthers will copy a 2018 Roosters ploy in an effort to hide Jarome Luai from Melbourne's enforcers. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":332659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332657"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332662,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332657\/revisions\/332662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/332659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}