The solo brilliance
Let the splitting of hairs begin. Cleary’s famous four-pointer came with the grand final well and truly on the line.
As he told this masthead in a revealing reflection 12 months ago, Cleary was angry because on the two previous tackles hooker Mitch Kenny had opted to give the ball to James Fisher-Harris and Scott Sorensen.
He then drew Walsh the wrong way with a “really underrated” hint of dummy half deception before letting Cleary loose and Adam Reynolds, Billy Walters and Walsh were duly beaten all ends up.
Cleary’s solo magic came with Penrith making all the running. Walsh’s scorching grand final try against Melbourne was delivered as Brisbane pushed the proverbial uphill.
In a first half where the Storm ran roughshod by targeting the Broncos’ right-edge, Walsh flew in behind the ruck, beat five defenders and left Ryan Papenhuyzen strewn across the Accor Stadium tarmac to keep Brisbane alive.
The mistakes and the madness
Now, this is fun. No player lives on rugby league’s raggedy edge like Walsh.
His five-star Sunday night showing may have never got off the ground either if he’d been given 10 minutes in the bin for hitting Xavier Coates in the head.
But it’s truly bizarre to think it was Cleary – a model of consistency – and not Walsh who was pulling a premiership out after “the worst 20 minutes of my career”.
Fittingly, it was a fast-stepping Walsh who blitzed past Cleary two years ago to set up Ezra Mam and Brisbane’s third try scored directly from an error by the Panthers No.7.
More fittingly, it was then Cleary who dragged himself and his side back from further behind than anyone ever has on grand final day.
The bread and butter – the most important of all
Once again, the script flips. When Cleary and Penrith were in all sorts of trouble with 17 minutes to play, he turned to his prize-winning kicking game, the most reliable in rugby league.
First, with an across-the-body 40-20 that beat Walsh – paddling 30 metres away in Brisbane’s backfield – like an English batsman.
Then Cleary delivered a critical sideline conversion that reduced a six-point Broncos lead to four.
And when Reynolds stepped up with a potentially game-changing punt of his own, Cleary’s attention to detail changed the contest again.
Two weeks earlier, Penrith had put extra work into their defensive set-ups for goal line dropouts, and Cleary had identified the exact spot Reynolds targeted, turning Brisbane’s dropout into a penalty instead.
So while Cleary fell back on his basics, Walsh changed his stars against Melbourne with what had been his biggest weakness – defence.
Three times he stopped Storm tries when any one of them would have swung the game Melbourne’s way. First, he bashed the ball from Tui Kamikamica’s grasp when he was already over the line.
He then ran down Papenhuyzen, rounding him up after packing into a scrum on halfway. And with just seconds remaining, Walsh stopped his opposite number once again when Eli Katoa had broken clear and given Melbourne one last gasp.
The playmaking
Between kicking and tackling their way to glory, Cleary and Walsh produced other plays from the very top shelf as well.
Walsh, especially, fired the death-or-glory passes few relish as much as the Broncos No.1.
When Reynolds hobbled off with a torn calf early in the second half, Walsh effectively played halfback when the Broncos were on the attack, firing passes for first Deine Mariner to cross the tryline, and then Gehamat Shibasaki on the opposite edge three minutes later.
Cleary rarely produces passes to match the gob-smacking brilliance of Walsh, and the 2023 decider was no different.
He was no less effective in dummying past ex-teammate Kurt Capewell, though, before finding Moses Leota in support for the try that started Penrith’s comeback.
Or when he shuffled, steered and cajoled the Panthers around as Brisbane’s lead was first narrowed, and then eclipsed with his match-winning moment.
The verdict
It seems incredible to think, given Cleary’s dominance came just two years ago, that Walsh might just claim his crown already.
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Significantly, Walsh’s match-winning efforts came on both sides of the ball: his blistering attack, pinpoint passing and clutch decision-making were matched by inspirational, unexpected defence.
Yet, for romance and redemption, Cleary’s recovery from a miserable first hour to a masterful final quarter remains as astounding as ever – with a single, all-on-the-line, match-winning try the remarkable final act. All with a ruptured knee ligament, no less.
And really, there’s no need to be comparing the two after all. The company each grand final performance keeps is more than enough.
