Nathan Cleary’s former halves partner James Maloney has come to the defense of the young playmaker after a poor performance in Game I of the Origin series in Adelaide.

“It takes time to be fully comfortable and fully understand the Origin arena,” Maloney told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“It’s a different type of footy. There are not many who come in and are perfect from their very first game to their last game and nail it down. You get things wrong, you learn from it and move on.

“When it comes to Nathan, he’s now played in two series and they’ve had two series wins. They’ve lost the first game and people want to put him into a box. They also lost last year’s first game. By them sticking with him, I don’t think it will be a case of him thinking, ‘it doesn’t matter how I’ll play I’ll still be there’. He’d never feel like that.

“Despite outside noise, he’s always been able to honestly assess where his game is at and work really hard on what he’s doing. I thought he created some opportunities in the game, they just couldn’t capitalise on them.”

Cleary will be joined in the halves for Game II by Cody Walker.