Penrith halfback Nathan Cleary will miss the next four to six weeks after injuring his shoulder in Origin II.
Cleary suffered a partially dislocated shoulder that will eventually require surgery, but doctors have told him he can delay the procedure until the end of the season to make a comeback for Penrith’s finals tilt.
With the star playmaker out for at least the next month, rugby league great Cameron Smith thinks they’ll need to alter their system with their "conductor" on the sidelines.
“What does Nathan Cleary’s injury mean for Penrith?” Smith asked on SEN 1170 The Captain’s run.
“They’ve got a pretty able replacement in Matt Burton.
“He’s been playing mostly in the centres, he can play in the halves and fullback so he’s very versatile.
“But they have struggled without Nathan to find victories throughout this State of Origin period.
“The reason for that is they’ve built a game plan or a style of football around Nathan Cleary.
“You’ll see him in attack where he’s telling people where to be and he’ll put them in position early, but he receives the ball a fair amount of times throughout their sets.
“He’s almost like the conductor of their attack where he’ll turn someone inside, he’ll play to a short runner, he’ll play out the back, he’ll have a run himself and he has a kicking game.
“When you take that player – Nathan Cleary in particular – out of that system, it seems they don’t have anything to fall back on.
“Big game this weekend against Parramatta, unfortunately no crowd, but it’s the battle of the west as we all know.
“It’ll be interesting to see how well the Panthers go this time around without Nathan, four to six weeks is a long time and they’ve got some big games on the back end of this spell in the Roosters and the Storm.
“If they can win a handful of these games without Nathan, they’ll be in a really good position in the back end of the year.”
Penrith face Parramatta at BlueBet Stadium on 7:55pm on Friday night.