A coy Ivan Cleary has given an update on injured fullback Dylan Edwards but has also been careful to keep his cards close to his chest before the Panthers face South Sydney in the NRL grand final on Sunday.
The Penrith coach spoke to media on Saturday on the eve of the season finale and dismissed concern over Edwards’ ability to play tomorrow.
“Dylan’s fine, he’ll be right,” Cleary said.
“I’m sure both teams have got players that are carrying injuries. We certainly have, but we’ve had that for some time.
“I just marvel at the resilience of these boys and the courage they show each week. They just refuse not to play and they keep turning up and doing their thing. I’m sure it will be the same tomorrow.”
Edwards is dealing with a plantar fascia issue, and has been using crutches and in a moon boot during public appearances before the grand final. He also has been on light training duties. But Cleary said the moon boot is just to give Edwards foot better support, and isn’t a sign he can’t play.
“It’s just to take weight off the foot, that’s all that is,” Cleary said.
“By the time training comes round, he goes out and does his thing. We were watching play last week and he was one of our best. He’s very important to our team and I marvel at the courage of these boys and how they mentally push their bodies to what they need to do.
“He’s just one of those guys everyone loves playing with. He’s tough, he’s durable, he gets targeted a lot, which pretty much sums up how valuable he is. He’s one of those teammates our boys love.”
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Cleary said he expects to have his 1-17 ready to go, with Viliame Kikau “essentially” to play off the bench as he did last week.
The Panthers coach revealed that the team is feeling confident they can improve on their performance the last time they played South Sydney, where they lost 16-10 in week one of the finals in Townsville three weeks ago.
“We left Townsville that night feeling like we didn’t put our best foot forward but we’ve done that the last couple of weeks, we’ve corrected a few things and improved gradually since then.
“We just want to get there tomorrow night and give our best possible performance and hope it’s a bit better than that game in Townsville.”
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