‘One of the best forwards’: Isaah Yeo to bring up special milestone, but Panthers teammate ruled out of crunch clash

The Panthers may be getting Nathan Cleary back this week, but the four-time defending premiers won’t have workhorse winger Brian To’o for up to a month after he aggravated the hamstring injury that ruled him out of their Las Vegas opener. To’o missed Penrith’s first-up win over the Sharks and is now set to miss another few weeks after he came off late during their loss to Souths with a hamstring issue. It’s a big blow for a team that has relied on his yardage coming out of trouble, although they should get fullback Dylan Edwards (groin) and Cleary (concussion protocols) back for the game against North Queensland after they both trained on Monday. “Nathan will be back, but ‘Bizza’ (To’o) won’t be. Hopefully Dyl will be,” coach Ivan Cleary said. “He (To’o) will be out for a few weeks.” While the representative duo will help their attack, Penrith can’t rely on them to fix their defensive struggles which were exposed in a stunning first half by the Rabbitohs who raced out to a 28-0 lead. The Panthers have built their success on the back of their defence, but they’ve already conceded 118 points after four games, compared to 114 in the opening 13 rounds of the 2021 season. “It will certainly help. Any time you get the best player back in your team is a good thing,” co-captain Isaah Yeo said. “But he’s not going to fix everything. We’ve got our defensive woes at the moment so he’ll definitely help that edge, but we’ve got to be better in certain areas. “Resilience, we need to be better there at defending errors. You don’t like making them, but when you do, you’ve got to be able to defend them and we haven’t been able to do that this season. “Off the back of that, teams are getting confidence because they’re scoring early and that’s hurting our confidence.” If the return of their two stars isn’t enough, the Panthers only have to look to Yeo who will become the first Panther to play 250 games. Friday night’s match at CommBank Stadium is the latest milestone for a man who has been described as “consistently excellent” by his coach, with Cleary declaring his side wouldn’t have had the same success without the man from Dubbo. “(He’ll be seen) as one of the best forwards in the game that’s ever played,” Cleary said, with Yeo leading Australia to success at last year’s Pacific Championships. “He’s the current Golden Boot winner. If you have a look at the past winners, that says a fair bit about where he is. “He’d be the first to admit that as an edge player, he was certainly capable but didn’t have certain skill sets that fit an elite back-rower. “It turns out that what he can do in the middle goes beyond what a lot of other people can do, so it’s been a good move for him and he’s made it his own.” The Panthers have been around for nearly 60 years, so it says a lot that Yeo is the first player to reach the milestone, with the co-captain now the standard of every other lock forward in the world. It’s been a fair journey for Yeo who debuted at centre in 2014 and only made the move to the middle in 2020 after a frustrating previous season where he played a number of positions and even spent some time on the bench. “It’s pretty special because no one at the club has done it before,” he said, with his ball-playing the envy of other middle forwards. “I think I’ve been lucky enough to be durable over a long period of time. We’ve played in some big games so obviously your season goes a bit longer, and all of a sudden you get to a milestone like this. “I finished 2019 and I think I got benched a few times throughout the season and had a shoulder reco. “I was teetering between lock, back row and was on the bench a bit there so it was one of those ones where you have to nail down your pre-season to give yourself the best chance to have a good year, and I thought I did that. “It’s helped me and I haven’t looked back since.”