‘Looking to evolve’: Panthers explain Fifita pursuit

Penrith coach Ivan Cleary labelled David Fifita a “marquee player” but was reluctant to talk about the Panthers’ pursuit of the Gold Coast Titans star amid revelations of a secret meeting to try to lure him south and a big contract offer.

Fifita has a two-year option to extend his Titans contract until the end of 2026 that he has until this Thursday to take up, with potential suitors lining up to throw potentially $1m a season at the State of Origin forward.

The Panthers have lost a truckload of talent in the wake of their three-straight premierships and with premiership forward James Fisher-Harris set to join the departures list at the end of the season Fifita could be a target.

Cleary met with Fifita in Sydney on Sunday, sparking a flurry of speculation and it’s since been reported the Panthers offered him a deal in excess of $850,000 a season.

But on Monday the premiership-winning coach said he had his “quota” of talking about recruitment stories in 2024 already. Instead, he would only concede that his team was always looking to “evolve”.

“Respectfully, I’m not going to comment on recruitment today, he said.

“It’s a very sensitive issue, all recruitment, and it affects a lot of people, clubs, players, agents, families, and I think we’ve already filled our quota for recruitment stories this year.

“We’re always looking to evolve, that’s the challenge when you’re losing players and if you’re just staying the same the game will go past you. We’re always looking to evolve but if you do that there’s always a danger you can lose what you’re good at too, so that’s been a balance.

“We got that a little bit wrong last year. It’s not a challenge, it’s actually fun as a group to work out how that looks and I’m looking forward to doing that as we go.”

Cleary said while the “mandate” at the Panthers was to build the squad from within, this situation was different.

“We spend a lot of time and money and effort in that regard and we still will,” he said.

“But from time to time, if you don’t have that, you’ve got to look outside.”

Cleary would, however, talk up the impending return of his superstar son Nathan from injury for Friday’s home clash with the Bulldogs.

Nathan wasn’t rushed back for last week’s demolition of hapless South Sydney.

“At this point he’s good to go,” Ivan said.

“We had issues about the game against Souths because of the five-day turnaround the week before. I probably should have made the call beforehand because we knew it was going to be a tough ask to play your first game back up (in Townsville) after a few weeks off.

“We could have rolled the dice but we didn’t want to take the risk.”