Penrith Panthers’ player Jarome Luai has appeared to confirm a romance between the club’s co-captain Nathan Cleary and Matildas’ star Mary Fowler.
There’s been speculation about a romance after the pair was seen having ice-cream together after the FIFA Women’s World Cup, but Cleary himself has shut down any talk of it.
However, Cleary’s Penrith teammate Luai was “ambushed” about the rumours on Thursday by the Kyle & Jackie O Show’s “Intern Pete” – and appeared to confirm the scuttlebutt.
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At a training session, Intern Pete first went straight for the jugular with Cleary, bluntly asking the Panthers’ co-captain if he was dating Fowler.
“Nah, nah, we’re not going to get into that,” the halfback said with a nervous laugh, shutting Pete down.
So Pete then moved onto Panthers’ five-eighth Jarome Luai.
Asked which Penrith player would be most likely to date a Matildas’ player, Luai said: “Nathan Cleary, shhhh.”
Pete then asked if the players talked about Cleary and Fowler in the change rooms.
“Yeah, we’re into them, definitely,” Luai said.
“He was a bit shy about it, that’s all,” he added, referring to Cleary’s refusal to speak to the media after rumours about his relationship with Fowler first gained traction.
“I’ve been trying to get some information out of him.
“I wanna see my bro happy, he’s on the lookout for some love.
“Yeah, but we’ll see how they go.”
While Intern Pete was 100 per cent certain this was a confirmation of the relationship, Kyle and Jackie O both expressed some doubts, saying they would rather have heard it from Cleary himself.
“I wouldn’t say 100 per cent,” Jackie said.
“Maybe 60?”
“Are you hearing what you want to hear him saying, rather than what he’s actually saying?” Kyle added.
“I think it’s case closed, don’t you reckon?” Pete insisted.
“No, I don’t think it is,” Jackie replied.
The story first caught fire when Cleary was seen having an ice-cream with Fowler at an Adidas event after the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The rumour mill sparked up when the team on the Hello Sport Podcast declared that a new Aussie sporting “power couple” had emerged.
“Now they’re both sponsored by Adidas and they were maybe doing a function. But you have an ice-cream with someone, that’s saying something,” podcast host Tom Birmingham said at the time.
“You may as well be holding hands.
“We haven’t got a power couple do we at the moment?” Birmingham asked.
On August 8, the pair was photographed taking a walk along the banks of the Nepean River at Tench Reserve in Penrith.
At a media event ahead of the NRL finals, Cleary said he was frustrated by the media attention on his private life – but did not deny he was in a relationship with Fowler.
“It is what is, (but) it’s a little bit annoying to not have a private life,” the Penrith captain said.
“But I like to not talk about it too much and keep anything I can private.
“Things take off pretty quick with social media but I’ll try to keep a private life if I can.”
Watch this space.
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