Cheerful Penrith Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has heaped praise on his livewire fullback Matt Moylan, who starred in his team's 32-10 win over the Newcastle Knights on Sunday afternoon.
Backing up from his efforts in earning the Players' Player award for City Origin a week earlier, Moylan earned 147 metres with a line-break. His acrobatic effort to keep the ball alive in the in-goal also allowed winger David Simmons to score his second try of the afternoon in what iced an outstanding effort from the impressive 22-year-old.
"I reckon it was about his best game of the year actually," Cleary said after the match.
"One thing about our previous two away games is no way in the world would he have put on that play that he did for our second try and those sort of things, those efforts especially away from home is contagious," Cleary said.
"He was taking quick taps and trying to spark our plays at any opportunity. He's definitely come back from that week away last week [for the City Country fixture] with increased confidence."
With the Panthers' win-loss-win-loss streak now extending for nine rounds, Cleary appeared seemingly pleased that the Panthers could secure the win in what he thought to be an against-the-odds victory following their first win away from the foot of the mountains for 2014.
"I am pleased. It's our first away win of the year – obviously a good monkey to get off your back. We were pretty big underdogs coming up here this week too and we had our own challenges with some of the players we had out," Cleary said.
"Some of our 80 minute-type players [were] missing: Lewis Brown, Elijah Taylor and Kevvy Kingston and guys like that.
"And then to have only two blokes on the bench for the entire second half, that was a good effort and some guys went further and played a lot more minutes than they have before, so that's good for them and a good little progression.
"We were doing it tough in the second half, they were actually dominating field position there for a little while but we were able to keep them out, so that was pleasing.
"I think we had to adjust our attitude slightly and I think we did that today."
