Cooper Cronk

Wow, news that has rocked the Rugby League world, Matthew.

I didn't think we'd be doing an emergency podcast today, but Ivan Cleary, four-time in a row Premiership winner as a coach for the Penrith Panthers, has announced as of 2027 he will no longer be head coach of the Penrith Panthers Rugby League Club.

That's pretty big news.

It's huge news.

Every single – Something happened a couple of days ago, and you said the same thing.

You went, jeez, a lot of other sports, it's very boring in terms of the drama, but rugby league is so proper.

It was like a Monday or a Tuesday of this week, and some news broke out, and it was just – there's always just something going on.

It is reality TV within a sporting environment, isn't it?

Even the scandals, like even bad stuff that happens, it's like there's something always happening.

I remember when I was doing the sports news on the Kyle and Jackie O show, and it'd always be, I was looking through all the different sports because I wanted to keep it quite broad because we had Sydney and Melbourne trying to do AFL stories as well.

And I can tell you what, sometimes the stuff that made the cutting room floor, just because there was always just rugby league stories out.

Yeah.

There's always – the rugby league journos do a really good job of constantly providing stories for everyone.

I can actually see that now.

As a player, I thought, geez, they're very pushy.

I always wanted that.

Like, you know, always wanting to get stories out.

But I can see now it makes the sport so much better having constant stories throughout it.

You do think, especially when you look at some of the other coaches, he's kind of on that pedestal now, given what he's done, particularly the last five years, of your bellyaches and Wayne Bennett's.

When you talk about success and you talk about, he hasn't had as long a career as those guys, so you still see him as a very young coach.