Tough 2019 important as Cleary eyes leadership role

Nathan Cleary believes a combination of lessons learned during an arduous 2019 and the current crop of leaders at Penrith will help forge his path towards being a leader in his own right.

Cleary's 2019 included playing through injuries (one of which forced him out of the Origin decider) and a nightmarish two wins from 10 games start at club level that all but ended Penrith's season before it began.

But with a new season to kick off against the 2019 premiers at Panthers Stadium on Saturday night, Cleary, still just 22 despite his 79 NRL and five Origin caps, believes he has come out the other side stronger.

The departure of James Maloney to the Super League has Cleary eyeing a bigger leadership role.

"As much as last year was up and down I think I learned a lot about myself and the way I want to go about leadership," Cleary said.

"There's always tough times through the year but I'm kind of glad last year happened now.

"It's the first year I really looked into leadership and it's definitely a lot more complex than what I first thought.

"I've learned a lot now, still got a long way to go but I can learn off people like Jimmy T [Tamou], Api [Koroisau] now and Zane Tetevano too, they're all very experienced.

"I'm learning off them and trying to implement that into my leadership."

Cleary said it was important to learn off those players while they are still around, along with the ex-players on the coaching staff.

"We've got some great guys here to learn off," he added. "Guys like Baz [attack coach Trent Barrett] and Peter Wallace who played the game as well, I'm always trying to learn off them and trying to find my voice too.

"That's something I've worked on over the last 12 months and it's coming along so I have to keep going on an upward trajectory."

Part of that trajectory is likely to include Cleary being the on-field captain for the purposes of the newly-implemented captain's challenge during periods while club captain Tamou is off the field.

"I think it will be me. I'm the one that's an 80-minute player. I think if Jimmy is off the field [that will fall] to myself," Cleary said.

"We've had a little chat about it. At the end of the day it kind of comes down to the player who's closest at the time, they probably know what happened, especially with dropped balls and stuff like that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios in a game. Ultimately if you know there's a wrong call you just throw your hand up and trust that."