Nathan Cleary has pleaded with NRL bosses to address a controversial scheduling issue that dudded Penrith after Origin Game 2 in Perth. The Panthers were left with little choice but to rest their entire Origin contingent for the round 16 clash against the Warriors in New Zealand, after a situation Cleary said should never have been allowed to happen.
Penrith’s match against the Warriors kicked off in Auckland only 67 hours after Origin 2 in Perth, with the Panthers’ Blues contingent facing a gruelling 5,300km trip. The Panthers determined it would be impractical to rush their Origin stars onto a six-hour flight immediately after their recovery session, especially with a return trip to Sydney to back up against Canterbury five days later on the cards as well.
While Penrith defied the odds to win both games, it marked the first time a team had been forced to play in Auckland within a week of an Origin match in Perth. And with the Perth Bears and Papua New Guinea entering the NRL in 2027 and 2028 respectively, Cleary says the scheduling issue around Origin is something league bosses need to sort out sooner rather than later.
“That’s probably going to be something that needs to be looked into, just the scheduling,” Cleary said. “In terms of teams like Townsville (North Queensland), the Perth team now, New Zealand (Warriors), they shouldn’t really ever be playing short turnarounds, or if you travel you shouldn’t be on a short turnaround.”
Currently, the longest non-stop flight for a team travelling to another’s regular home ground is from Auckland to Brisbane at around four hours, with North Queensland flying via Brisbane for that trip as well. But a flight from Auckland to Perth would be almost twice that at seven-and-a-half hours, with westerly winds making the trip even longer heading east to west.
Teams will also face long travel times heading to Port Moresby, with commercial flights from the east coast currently stopping via Brisbane en route to PNG. League boss Peter V’landys has previously floated the idea of the NRL purchasing its own private jet, but those plans have yet to come to fruition.
