Foes to friends: Eels, Panthers reunite as Kangaroos depart for England

Just four days after they went face-to-face in Sunday's Telstra Premiership Grand Final, Kangaroos representatives from the Panthers and Eels have come face to face again, this time as teammates.

With the rest of the Australian team assembling for training on Wednesday, the grand finalists were given an extra day off to recover from the decider — Nathan Cleary, Isaah Yeo, Liam Martin and Reagan Campbell-Gillard instead joining the squad on Wednesday afternoon ahead of their upcoming World Cup campaign.

After leading his side to back-to-back grand final wins, Cleary admitted he needed the extra day to recover from the celebrations but once he settles in for Thursday night’s long flight to England, will begin to prepare for the challenge ahead.

“There’s been a couple of days where you feel really content and I’m very happy," Cleary told the media on Thursday. "Now it’s gone and it’s on to the next one. 

“I think it’ll be on the plane tonight I start thinking about what’s ahead. It’s all sort of happened pretty quickly and been a bit of a blur but I’m very grateful to be in camp.

“I think it’s cool you get to play with great players you might have not had a chance to play alongside with yet and then people like Reg, you get to reunite with them.”

One of 13 Test newcomers in the Australian squad, the Premiership-winning halfback’s selection has sparked a debate over who will wear the Kangaroos’ No.7 jersey at the World Cup this year. The 24-year-old said he is taking the selection battle with incumbent Daly Cherry-Evans as “healthy competition”.

“I haven’t had the opportunity to represent my country yet so it’s pretty amazing and I’m very happy to be in the camp with these great players,” he said.

“We haven’t had too many chats about that (No. 7 jersey) yet, I just got into camp yesterday arvo so I think that’ll come when we get to England.

“That’s the beauty of rugby league, there’s always challenges to overcome and there are always things to strive for.

“It’s healthy competition, obviously, Daly is a great player so we’ll see how it goes but just to be mentioned alongside those players in the international game is special.”

Meanwhile, Parramatta prop Reagan Campbell-Gillard has entered the green and gold camp determined to put his side’s grand final loss behind him, referring to the 28-12 loss at Accor Stadium as the game that ‘shall not be named.'

“It’s more like Harry Potter and Voldemort, we’re not really speaking of the game. It sucks, it really does,” Campbell-Gillard said.

“If you’re going to lose you’d want to do it with them. After the game, I sat down and had a beer with Yeoy’ [Isaah Yeo]. He’s been in the same situation and we’re very close mates so that took a little bit of the gut-wrenching out of it.

“But we’re here now and it’s more exciting times ahead and it’s something we don’t really talk about now.

“It’s the rollercoaster of this year and very lucky and I’m feeling very privileged to be in camp now.”

Despite still reeling from Sunday's Grand Final loss, the 2017 Australian representative spoke admirably of his former teammates form this season with special praise for his Kangaroos teammate in Cleary

“They’ve been the best team for the last three years and he’s been a massive part of that success," Campbell-Gillard said. “If he was a front-rower I’d be filthy about how good he is but he’s a halfback and he’s nailed his role at such a young age and he's only going to get better. He’s a master in his class.”