Cleary committed to pushing through goal kicking "slump"

The Kangaroos progressed to the semi-finals in style with a big win over Lebanon, but as the competition gets fiercer and the score margins closer, Mal Meninga was aware there was room for improvement in the defending champions' goal-kicking department.

After kicking the ball out on the full in the first two minutes against the Cedars, Nathan Cleary’s boot continued to raise some concern throughout the match, with the premiership-winning halfback missing three from nine conversion attempts during the Kangaroos’ 48-4 quarterfinal win at Huddersfield.

With several balls falling short, the misses were uncharacteristic of the Penrith star who finished the 2022 NRL season with an 85 percent success rate, and the 25-year-old said he planned to tidy up the errors that crept into his game against Lebanon.

“I need to watch the tape back and work it out, I think there’s little things I could adjust which I'll look at this week,” Cleary told the media following the Kangaroos' 48-4 win over Lebanon.

“It’s just s*** kicking. As I said I’ll work hard on it and try and get it better, but if it keeps going that way, I’ve got some pretty good goal-kickers on the team as well.

“It’ll come down to training this week. I’ll make some slight adjustments and if it works then I’ll feel confident to kick, but if I’m not striking them too well then there’s great goal-kickers in the team.”

Despite 2022 marking the two-time premiership-winner's first World Cup campaign, the Kangaroo rookie’s wealth of big-game experience is what has Cleary believing he can push through the goal-kicking “slump”.

“If I was doing that when I was younger, I would have been stressing pretty hard, but I’ve definitely gotten better at moving on to the next thing when something doesn’t go right,” he said.

“If you dwell on things too often then it’s going to affect the next part of your game.

“You always go through slumps with goal-kicking so it’s just another one to try and work my way through.”

With Kangaroos teammate Valentine Holmes sitting on a 100 percent conversion rate after kicking seven goals in Round 1, and the likes of Kangaroos stars Latrell Mitchell and Daly-Cherry Evans also handy with the boot, coach Mal Meninga is spoilt for goal-kicking choices.

However, Meninga said he would be leaving the goal kicker appointments to be decided among the players themselves.

“I’ll let the players sort that one out, they’re the ones hitting the balls at training,” Meninga said.

“They do a lot of practice at times. Sometimes we think about leaving him there because we want to go home for lunch.

“Nathan is a mid 80s goal kicker and the balls are different over here so he’s been working to get it right.

“They’re a bit lighter and a fraction smaller than we’ve got over in Australia.”

Standing in Australia’s way of a World Cup final berth at Manchester United’s Old Trafford is arch-rivals New Zealand, who Australia will face in next week's semi-final. 

While it was an impressive scoreline for the green and gold on Saturday against Lebanon, Meninga said it's not just goal-kicking his side will look to build on this week.