Ivan Cleary open to making son Panthers captain, talks rumoured Phil Gould rift

Come-again Penrith coach Ivan Cleary says he will happily anoint his son Nathan captain of the Panthers if the NSW Origin halfback proves he's the man for the job.While 21-year-old Nathan shied away from leadership talk last week – telling reporters "I think that'll be a bit of favouritism" – his father isn't opposed to handing him the reins."If the day comes where he should be the captain, then he should be," Cleary said at a media conference on Saturday."I don't think it's at this point yet. There's going to be some things [with] our relationship that we probably don't know exactly how that's going to pan out, but we're pretty open that that's going to happen and we'll just deal with it."I believe he's got leadership potential for sure,
but that'll be down the track somewhere and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it if we need to."Cleary said Penrith are in no rush to name a skipper for 2019 but pointed to James Maloney, Isaah Yeo and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak as the leading candidates."We haven't necessarily got a logical choice. We're not rushing into that decision and we're keen to see players leading in the absences of leadership at the moment," Cleary said."... I just want to get a feel for the squad and how it all works together and we'll make that decision later on."The former Wests Tigers mentor also rubbished suggestions that his relationship with Panthers boss Phil Gould is strained.