Penrith Panthers’ captain Nathan Cleary’s superstar girlfriend Mary Fowler sends him a heartfelt message of support ahead of the grand final

Nathan Cleary is on the brink of rugby league immortality and his superstar girlfriend Mary Fowler has sent a public message of support to help him grab it.

Cleary is ready to overcome a shoulder problem suffered during the Penrith Panthers’ preliminary final win over the Cronulla Sharks and will lead his side to a fourth consecutive NRL grand final on Sunday.

The Panthers have already won the last three deciders and can make even more history with a fourth against the Melbourne Storm at Accor Stadium.

Fowler also knows a thing or two about big games, helping the Matildas to a historic fourth-place finish at the 2023 Women’s World Cup in the absence of injured star and captain Sam Kerr.

In a simple message on Instagram, she posted a four-sentence message to her loved one that read:

‘Be yourself

so the people

looking for you

can find you.’

“It won’t be long Mary before our boy is a four-time champion,” one of her followers wrote.

“There’s nothing like young love,” another added.

The heartfelt message came as Cleary prepares for a grand final showdown against the Melbourne Storm, where Penrith can record a historic fourth consecutive premiership.

It comes after Cleary admitted on Channel Nine’s Marlee and Me podcast that he approaches his relationship with Fowler in a similar way to football.

“It’s the next day for me, it’s the next day of how can I be a better person, how can I be a better player, how can I just get better?”

“It’s probably a mentality that I have a lot: finding ways to get better. It often involves small incremental gains over a long period of time. They turn to big profits.

“That’s my mentality rather than so many accolades or achievements.”

‘That’s just as good off the field as on it. I really believe that if you improve yourself as a person, it will also be reflected in your football.’

Fowler and Cleary have been an item since late 2023, as exclusively revealed by Ny Breaking Austalia

Meanwhile, Melbourne captain Harry Grant has revealed the Storm will not be chasing Cleary’s shoulder in the premiership decider.

In the 2018 Grand Final, the Storm were distracted by Sydney Roosters No. 7 Cooper Cronk, who went into the match at Accor Stadium with a broken shoulder blade.

Their former teammate lifted the Roosters to an emphatic 21-6 win.

Although Grant was not part of the Melbourne line-up, he said his team would not make the same mistake in Sunday’s showdown.

Cleary missed three matches after falling on his left shoulder in Round 24 against the Storm and returned for the final, and he appeared to worsen the joint ‘instability’ late in Saturday’s 26-6 preliminary final win over Cronulla.

Cleary appeared unaffected by his shoulder problems as he took selfies with fans during training ahead of the NRL grand final

But with Cleary having been dominant since his return, including providing three try assists against the Sharks, Grant said the halfback had proven he could handle his injury without it affecting his contribution.

“We don’t have to focus on one player, on Nathan and his shoulder,” Grant said Monday.

“I think he has shown in recent weeks and years what a class player he is and how he performs, whether he is under an injury cloud or not, in these big games.

“He has shown that with his performances in recent weeks, and we expect nothing less, so we are not going to tackle him in a different way than we normally would.”

With only Cameron Munster, Christian Welch and the suspended Nelson Asofa-Solomona remaining from the 2018 grand final team, Melbourne’s own star No.7 Jahrome Hughes said going after Cleary would come at a cost.

“I think if we focus too much on him and his injury, it won’t end well for us,” Hughes said.

“A few guys played in the ’18 grand final and they bring up that they probably focused too much on Cooper, more than they should, and it probably came back to bite them.

‘We have fully learned from that as a club, and we will probably not look at that too much and concentrate more on what we can do as a team to improve.’