Steve Deane: Win or lose, Cleary gets his kicks

Ivan Cleary. Photo / Richard Robinson

We kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down, Don Henley sang in his 1982 hit single Dirty Laundry.

The song was a critique of the way tabloid television deals with celebrity, but Henley could just as easily have been singing about footy coaches.

The lyric "when it's said and done we haven't told you a damn thing", for instance, is a fair summary of many an Ivan Cleary press conference. Or just about any interview with Wayne Bennett, for that matter.

Kick 'em when they're up? With Bennett that's usually the only choice. Not so Cleary. Strange, in a way, considering the coach's level-headed persona, but in five-and-a-bit seasons under their former fullback, the Warriors have endured wild swings of fortune.

When quizzed on his job security at the start of this season, Cleary replied along the lines of "let's wait and see what happens if we lose three matches in a row".

We didn't have to wait long. As Cleary had clearly expected, the knives came out. Now, after a run of five straight victories - and seven out of eight all-up - the blades have been sheathed. Cleary has seen off another mini crisis before it became a full-blown meltdown, and he's done it by making bold calls under intense pressure.

The kicking will have to wait.

By any fair measure, Cleary has produced a fine display of coaching so far this season. Yes, the horror 0-3 start must lie at his door. But so too must the credit for the subsequent turnaround.

A succession of bold calls from the coach hit paydirt. His round-four gutting of his first-choice line-up resulted in a crucial victory against the Sharks in Taupo; his decision to trial Feleti Mateo at five-eighths produced two wins but also provided enough evidence to confirm his new signing is better suited to the pack; shifting Simon Mannering and Lewis Brown into the centres has stiffened an edge defence that was the team's greatest weakness; senior halfback Brett Seymour has returned a different player after being dropped for three matches; Kevin Locke has been brilliant since being inserted at fullback; and rookie Elijah Taylor has emerged onto the NRL scene as a complete first grade-ready package.

The Cleary kudos shouldn't stop there. It was Cleary who determined Jacob Lillyman's future lay at prop. Lillyman wasn't so sure, but this season he has emerged as one of the best front rowers in the competition.

Under Cleary's tutelage, Lewis Brown has gone from failed hooker to world-class back rower. Excess baggage at Melbourne, James Maloney is now one of the NRL's most in-demand playmakers. Then there is Manu Vatuvei - a former basket case who these days weaves his opponents into quivering wrecks.

Of course, much like Cleary's assessment of Vatuvei's hobbling form as a positive because his best displays this season are still ahead of him, much depends how you spin it.

Dyed-in-the-wool Cleary haters will argue that Locke should have been given a chance at fullback years ago; that Lillyman had to be converted because he was a failure as a back rower; that Brown and Mannering are just Band Aids covering the club's inability to sign or produce genuine centres; that the coach had the whole off-season to sort out his top side but had to go back to the drawing board after just three games.

Such is the lot of a coach. Kick 'em when they're up.

While those arguments all have some merit, the win-loss column doesn't lend itself to the vagaries of personal interpretation. At 7-4 the Warriors are sitting pretty inside the top eight and are primed to push into the top four.

They've got there despite a horror start; despite losing the talismanic Vatuvei to a nasty injury in round one; despite losing key backline figure Jerome Ropati for the season in round three; and despite losing young fullback Fisiiahi just when he was emerging as the player who could turn the season around.

Cleary's Warriors appear to have every chance of improving on last year's fifth-place finish. The same can't be said of many of the clubs that contested last year's finals series. Beaten grand finalists Sydney Roosters are 13th with just three wins to their name. The Panthers (2nd to 16th), Titans (4th to 14th) and Panthers (2nd to 12th) have also tailed off dramatically.

At the mid-point of the season, Cleary will undoubtedly be a much happier man than Matthew Elliott, Brian Smith, John Cartwright and David Furner.

The tough decisions, however, may just be beginning. What will Cleary do with a fit again Fisiiahi? And what is happening with hooker Alehana Mara, who was dropped the week after he was named in Big League magazine's team of the week for a blinding display against Newcastle? Is Shaun Berrigan really a better option than Brown at centre?

Whatever he decides, plenty of us will kick him.