NATHAN Cleary is trying to take his game to new heights for finals football and is drawing on his experiences in Origin to help him.

Cleary has grown a lot as a footballer this season and much of that can be attributed to his representative season with the Blues.

“I think playing in those Origin games has definitely helped and playing alongside Jimmy (Maloney) helps that as well,” Cleary said.

“I think those games teach you to be patient. There isn’t always a lot of points in finals games, so if something doesn’t come off the first time you have to stick with it and trust that it will come later in games, when fatigue sets in.

“The other thing is you don’t get many opportunities, so when you get them, you have to make sure you take them with both hands.”

Cleary is still only 21 and is in just his third season of first grade.

However, such is his standing in the game now, the boom No.7 is no longer happy to just be making up the numbers.

“The last couple of years maybe I fell into the trap that I was just happy to be there, but this year I want to take a step further and get through this second week,” Cleary said.

“It’s not going to be an easy task because the Sharks are a great team and we are going to have to play really well, but I’m confident in our boys.”

One thing the Panthers will have to do is start better against the Sharks.

The Panthers have been the comeback kings of the competition this season, but the deeper into the finals the team gets, the less forgiving teams will be if they get off to a slow start.

“It would be lovely to have a good start, but if I knew what the problem was we would have hopefully fixed it by now,” Cleary said.

“I thought our start was better against the Warriors, but we gave away a few silly penalties and some soft tries, but we clicked into gear straight after that.

“I think our intent was a lot better and after that first 20 minutes we came together well and played some good footy.”

The clash with the Sharks sees Cleary take on his former halves partner Matt Moylan.

“I’ve played a lot of footy with Matt (Moylan) over the past two years or so and I know what he is capable of,” Cleary said.

“He’s a really hard person to defend because you don’t know what he is going to throw up and he’s all class and can come up with some freakish things.

“Our defence will definitely have to come up with our A-game.”