Vision of Penrith coach Ivan Cleary making a gesture to a Bulldogs fan has emerged following the Panthers’ shock 32-16 loss to Canterbury on Thursday night.
Footage obtained by News Corp shows a Bulldogs supporter goading Cleary in the dying minutes of the match, shouting “let’s go” towards the coaching box.
Drinking a bottle of water, Cleary then responded by making a gesture with his hand.
It’s understood the Panthers and NRL officials are aware of the footage, but it’s uncertain whether any action will be taken against the four-time premiership-winning coach.
Cleary has clashed with fans before, blowing kisses at Tigers fans when he returned to Leichhardt Oval as Penrith coach in 2020.
The incident involving the Bulldogs fan was not addressed in the post-match press conference.
However, Cleary said talk of playing representative football may have posed as distraction for his much hyped outside backs.
Before Thursday night’s match, Penrith became the first side to ever win their first five games by at least 20 points, leading to talk of Mclean and Jenkins playing for the Blues this year.
And Cleary referenced the buzz around his players post-match.
“Yeah, maybe they’re getting ready for Origin camp,” Cleary said when asked about his left edge.
“A couple of boys went back a couple of pegs, but as I’ve mentioned, they’re young and it’s just a good part of the experience for them.
“I’m sure they’ll bounce back.”
Penrith went down 16-0 before levelling the match but the Bulldogs found an extra gear in the second half.
“We showed some decent signs in that second part of the first half, I didn’t really feel like we were playing our best footy,” he added.
“To their credit, they were just harder than we were and we just didn’t respond that well. They fully deserved their win.
“We got reminded what a good hard game of footy looks like and I’m sure will be better for it.”
Co-captain Isaah Yeo also mentioned the “noise” over the last few weeks and how the loss will help the younger players.
“Rugby league is the ultimate leveller so it might be the best thing for us to maybe stop a little bit of that noise of people talking about being unbeaten through the season,” Yeo said.
“That’s certainly not the case now but I think we’ll be able to look back and just learn lessons from it.
“We’ve been able to learn lessons from the last few weeks as well but ultimately we’ve sort of been in big leads throughout the game whereas tonight we were sort of a fairway behind and then it’s just a different flow to the game.
“I think we’ll be able to learn lessons from that and then ultimately, we’ll be better for it. It’ll stop a little bit of noise which is not a bad thing.”
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