Ivan Cleary backs Warriors coach Andrew Webster to achieve future NRL success, 2023 season peaked before team was ready

Penrith Panthers coach Ivan Cleary. Photo / AAP

Ivan Cleary has few doubts his former assistant will achieve success with the Warriors.

The four-time premiership winning Penrith Panthers coach told Mike Hosking that Andrew Webster’s side are not as far off the top of the NRL as many would believe.

He said their historic run to the finals in 2023 perhaps came before the squad was ready for the rigours of the NRL finals, but backed them to return to the top of the ladder in seasons to come.

“Andrew, I was fortunate enough to work with him for a few years. He’s a tremendous person and a great coach.

“I think, the year before [this season], probably set them up a little before they may have been ready [they had] such a great season in ‘23. They probably weren’t as far off as everyone may think last year, I think.”

Cleary alluded to the sizable travelling distance the Warriors undertake each season between New Zealand and Australia, commenting that even small factors like travel can have an impact on what is already a brutal NRL schedule.

“There’s not much in it in the NRL, such a tight competition, the rigours of travel, although it’s never going to go away, is far and above what anyone else has to do [for the Warriors] in the NRL, so that’s always going to be potentially an issue.

“I think I’d be surprised if they don’t have a much better season this year.”

Cleary speaks from experience, as head coach of the Warriors he oversaw a grand final appearance in 2011 before departing for Wests Tigers and eventually Penrith.

Patience with coaches and players cannot be understated, he told Hosking, as it was 25 years in the NRL as a player and a coach before Cleary first tasted a premiership.

The most successful coach in Australia has opened up in his new book about the highs and lows of his career, Not Everything Counts, But Everything Matters.

That includes the highs such as four premiership successes with Penrith and coaching his son and one of the world’s best players, Nathan, and lows such as battling depression, Sonny Fai’s tragic death and his messy exit from the Warriors.