Kalyn Ponga had the same foot injury as Nathan Cleary. He was off his feet for six weeks

Kalyn Ponga is backing fellow superstar Nathan Cleary to overcome the same foot injury that kept him off his feet for six weeks during the pre-season.

Penrith confirmed on Monday night that their medical team would continue to assess Cleary ahead of next weekend’s preliminary final after scans confirmed he had a “stress-related bone issue in his foot”.

Ponga encountered the same injury before returning to Newcastle pre-season training at the end of last year, and was forced off his feet because of the pain.

Like Cleary, Ponga risked turning a micro-fracture into a full-blown one if he pushed too hard at training. Unlike Cleary, Ponga had the luxury of the summer to take his time with his recovery, with club medical staff happy to back off his program when the pain became unbearable.

“I had stress fractures in my bones, it was painful, but you can play with it – Nathan will play with it, no doubt,” Ponga told this masthead.

“I did a couple of pre-season training sessions with it. It will be sore warming up, but once you get going, it’s not too bad.

“I did mine from over-running. I was trying to do longer-distance running in the off-season, I thought it would be quite cool, but it was wearing my bone down.

“Once I got to actual pre-season, it was pretty painful. If I kept going, it [the bone] could have broken.

“I had to be off my feet for about five or six weeks. If it was right now, and I was three games out from a grand final, you’d play on one foot – someone like Nathan, he’s such quality, he could get around the park on one foot.

“I can only speak about my injury and the pain I felt. I’m not sure if you keep playing and how that affects you.”

Penrith coach Ivan Cleary told SEN radio on Tuesday: “The injury is definitely the impact of overuse and all that kind of stuff.

“He kicks a lot, does a lot, runs a lot, does the most metres every game of every player. It all adds up.

“He spends more time now doing mental reps as well, [and] I think he is really going to have to lean on that mental side over the coming weeks, because he is going to have to pull back.

“He knows he has kicked enough balls. He’ll just spend enough time going through mental rehearsal, and that will do the trick.”