Penrith’s James Tamou insists Nathan Cleary and Te Maire Martin shouldn’t carry the burden for the side’s poor start to the season and urged his teammates to give the young playmakers more support.

The Panthers’ early season woes were on show in their 28-2 NRL defeat to Cronulla on Sunday as they at times looked limited in their attacking scope.

Despite being pre-season title fancies, the mountain men have limped to 2-5 with Cleary and Martin finding life difficult going in their second year of first grade.

This year opposition sides have appeared increasingly clued into their structures and pet plays and have effectively nullified their influence, in particular the Sharks, who were successful in getting up in their faces and limiting their time.

While undoubtedly players of enormous potential, they are facing having to find a way around opposition plans for them – and that’s where Tamou insists the rest of the side needs to come in.

“Teams are looking at that, they’re shutting them down, they’re getting off the line,” Tamou said.

“We saw it with the Sharks, they read it really well. I think we need to change that.

“We need to do our job and give them more options. We have to stand either side of them – so if they see someone shooting out they can throw the inside ball or something like that. That’s up to us to help them out.”

Tamou was adamant it wouldn’t be a long-term problem for Cleary, 19, and Martin, 21, who are still finding their feet in the top flight.

Likewise, the NSW and Australian prop says there isn’t much wrong with the side – they’re still making good yardage and have their share of field position, they just haven’t learned how to be patient with the football.

“We don’t have trouble getting out of our own half,” Tamou said.

“But it’s just applying pressure or when we do apply pressure, we just let them off with some simple handling error or something like that.”

By their own admission, against the Sharks, they were guilty of playing too laterally and going wide too early.

Tamou said it was the responsibility of the the Panthers’ middle men to get them going and only then would their ability to apply pressure and trouble the scoreboard come.

“I think we just needed to go through the middle first and create our chances,” Tamou said.

“We were looking to build pressure but then we just let them off the hook with something silly.

“They (Cronulla) were really well drilled, they were reading our plays, running off the line and we need to start through the middle.”