Cleary's crunch-time heroics no fluke

Ivan Cleary was so confident son Nathan would level up the game on the siren in Friday night's 9-8 win over Wests Tigers that he was planning golden point in advance.

A relieved Cleary said he was "stoked" to see Nathan then back up his conversion from the near sideline with a 40-metre field goal to secure the Panthers' second win of the season.

After a week of build-up centred around the family battle against the club Ivan walked away from last year, it was the Penrith coach who had the last word, at least until the two sides meet again in round nine on Magic Round weekend.

"I was pretty stoked, that doesn't happen every day and added to the theatre, the whole build up that everyone drove," Cleary said.

"You've just got to find a way to win sometimes and we did that tonight. Jimmy's done it plenty of times in his career as well.

"We've practised for that, I know for a fact Nath has put a lot of work into that mentally and physically.

"You don't always get it, the Tigers missed a few but when they come off it's no fluke."

Putting aside the fairytale fashion, the 80 minutes of regular time did not please Cleary, who admitted his side was not playing to a high standard.

"We've got a few guys still trying to find confidence that's for sure," he said.

"We can't complete sets. We've gone four games in a row where the most we've completed is 26 or something. Tonight was again 24.

"If you can't build pressure and get into a rhythm it's hard. A credit to the Tigers, I thought they defended really well.

"We've clearly got a bit of work to do. I'm confident we'll get there."

The Panthers were also dealt a couple of blows during the game with Frank Winterstein suffering a knee injury in the opening minutes, while Wayde Egan left the field after a nasty head knock.

Winterstein's injury brought Viliame Kikau, returning from a six-week layoff with a knee injury, into the game early after starting from the bench.

"He's done decent damage to his knee, we're hoping it's a medial and nothing worse than that," Cleary said of Winterstein.

"For [Viliame] to play over 80 minutes he'll be better for that run also. He was out there a lot earlier than we wanted him to. The idea was to get him out of that first frantic period of the game.

"I thought he had some good touches, he will only be better for it."