Matildas star Mary Fowler has enjoyed a breakthrough start to score for Manchester City just hours after her partner Nathan Cleary won his fourth NRL premiership in a row.
Cleary, playing with a busted left shoulder that needs surgery, put his body on the line to lead Penrith to victory over Melbourne in the grand final on Sunday night in Sydney.
And just hours later Fowler was celebrating a 2-0 win over West Ham in the Women’s Super League before toasting Cleary’s triumph from the other side of the globe.
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“Him. 😍🔥,” Fowler wrote on a photo of Cleary and the premiership trophy.
The grand final fell outside international windows that could have helped Fowler return home to attend the grand final, with Cleary last week having confirmed her inevitable absence.
“She is not coming. Her season just started over in England. I think she will be watching, but she won’t be there,” he said.
Cleary took on a vastly different role to last year’s grand final — when he sparked a miracle late comeback — as he ran for a powerful 212 metres and laid a season-high 31 tackles in a low-scoring thriller to beat the Storm.
On the football pitch, Fowler was tasked with starting with teammate Khadija Shaw benched and just 10 minutes into the game the 21-year-old proved why she deserved the chance.
Surrounded by three defenders Fowler somehow needled a ball through to Lauren Hemp, who hammered home the first goal for City.
Fowler then turned from provider to goalscorer in the second half when she peeled away at the back post and headed the ball into the back of the net to seal the 2-0 win over West Ham.
And so the celebrations began, half a world apart.
Cleary, 26, opened up on his long-distance relationship with Fowler before the grand final, revealing the attention was at first “a bit of a shock”.
He has learned to stay off social media more often since his “naive” cross-country tip to support Fowler at a Matildas game in Perth.
“It all just happened and I thought ‘oh, ok’. I had to deal with that but I felt a bit sorry for Mary at the time,” Cleary said.
“Just with her personal life being in the spotlight, too, and all the added attention she had on her. We’ve spoken about it. It’s just about controlling what we can control and not worrying too much about it.”
Cleary’s own teammates even played up to the attention, with Brian To’o at one point adding a ring to his comments on social media.
Cleary said his and Fowler’s shared experience of being professional athletes has been crucial without being all-encompassing.
“For her, it’s all blown up so quickly after the World Cup last year and obviously us two and all that,” Cleary said.
“I’m always checking in on her but she owns it well. It’s been a meteoric rise for her, that’s for sure, but she’s very humble and down to earth.”
– with AAP