Nathan Cleary will be available for Penrith's season opener after the NRL judiciary downgraded the Panthers co-captain's high tackle charge on Monday night, sparing him a suspension that had threatened to derail the club's early season ambitions.
The incident occurred in the 38th minute of the Round 3 Pre-Season Challenge clash at Leichhardt Oval on February 20, when referee Ashley Klein sent Cleary to the sin bin for a high shot on Wests Tigers winger Heamasi Makasini. According to ESPN, Cleary collected Makasini across the jaw as the teenager juggled the ball in Penrith's half. The Panthers went on to lose the trial match 26-12.
The NRL's match review committee had charged Cleary with a Grade 2 careless high tackle — a serious classification, given that it was his second offence. As reported by the Penrith Panthers' official website, the charge carried a two-match ban with an early guilty plea, or a potential three-match suspension if contested at the judiciary. For a side with a notoriously difficult early draw and a painful memory of last season's slow start, the prospect of losing their most important player for three rounds was significant.
Cleary chose to contest the grading. In an unusual move that drew attention across the rugby league world, he appeared at the hearing not with a solicitor but with his father, head coach Ivan Cleary, as his representative. Ivan Cleary argued that the initial contact was shoulder-to-shoulder and that the force of the tackle did not connect directly with Makasini's head or neck. The defence team also noted that Makasini did not undergo a Head Injury Assessment, which would typically accompany a Grade 2 offence of this nature.
The NRL's prosecution, led by Lachlan Gyles SC, maintained the Grade 2 classification was warranted given the level of carelessness involved and the risk created when Cleary rushed off the defensive line. The tribunal panel, chaired by former Supreme Court judge Geoffrey Bellew SC and comprising former player Ryan James and retired referee Greg McCallum, ultimately sided with the defence.
The charge was downgraded to Grade 1. Cleary will pay an $1,800 fine and is free to take the field in Penrith's Round 1 clash against the Brisbane Broncos on March 6. There is genuine debate about whether the NRL judiciary system consistently applies the standards it sets for player welfare — the prosecution's argument that Cleary could have adjusted to ensure a lower tackle point carries weight in an era when the game is rightly focused on head injury prevention. Critics of the process will note that a father-son dynamic in the hearing room, while perfectly legal, is hardly the adversarial structure one might expect from a body adjudicating on safety matters.
At the same time, the defence made a coherent, evidence-based case. Makasini himself emerged from the game without requiring medical attention. If the physical evidence genuinely supported a lower grading, then the panel's decision is defensible. The judiciary process exists precisely to allow these distinctions to be tested.
For Wests Tigers fans, the episode was at least somewhat overshadowed by the performance of the player at the centre of it all. Makasini had already scored a stunning first-half try before the incident, running 40 metres and beating multiple defenders in a display that has the teenager firmly in contention for a starting spot when the season proper begins. At 18, with barely a first-grade game to his name, he is shaping as one of the more exciting young wingers the competition has seen in years.
The broader question, one the NRL will need to keep revisiting, is whether the graduated charge system adequately deters high contact. Cleary walks away with a fine that represents a modest impost for one of the game's highest-profile players. The rules exist; whether the penalties carry sufficient weight to change behaviour in the heat of a match is a debate the game cannot afford to shelve.