Moses steals show but clutch Cleary kick leaves all in awe

Even the most passionate, rusted on Parramatta fans in bay 113 sat there and applauded.

Mitchell Moses may have been the hero on Thursday night but Nathan Cleary’s 45-metre field goal stunner to send the game into golden point will go down as one of the clutch efforts of the year.

Parramatta thought they were doing the right thing by using their captain’s challenge on Junior Paulo’s high tackle to give themselves a quick breather and slow the play down. 

In doing so though it also allowed Cleary time too – against all odds – to set up from a tap restart, shun the Eels defenders applying kick pressure and sink a two-pointer to send CommBank Stadium into a sea of silence momentarily. 

Eels skipper Clint Gutherson, a former NSW teammate, could only watch Cleary's clutch play sail over from under the sticks.

“My bottom lip dropped a second watching it the whole way,” Gutherson said post-match.

“When he hits it like that you can’t do much. We had kick pressure on him but he’s just a great footy player, clutch moment and he’s done it all his career.

“[We’re] lucky it went our way tonight ... great game of footy.”

Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has seen his son do nearly everything in the game but slotting that effort under pressure was a new level of owning the moment.

“It was pretty cool, it’s a shame because he missed one against the Broncos and he got it tonight but we still didn’t get the win,” Cleary said.

“We’re just not quite getting those close games which all add up. It’s early days, we’re playing well and it was a good game tonight.

“I was impressed by both teams. I liked how we fought back from eight points down twice.”

Meanwhile, opposite half Moses looks set to put pen to paper on a long-term contract with the Eels in the coming days according to reports on Friday afternoon.

Eels coach Brad Arthur commended the way Moses had handled himself in the past week with the external noise around his future stealing the headlines.

“He responded the best way possible, especially on the back of Nathan icing that 45-metre field goal – I don’t know where that come from,” Arthur said.

“If we got beat tonight there wasn’t much more we could’ve done footy-wise to try and win it.

“The effort from both teams was through the roof. Both teams scrambled hard, it was just end to end and as I said, hardly any errors, 10 lost plays in the game.

“That’s massive, so both teams should be proud of themselves and we were fortunate to get the win.”