Noel Cleal

Noel Cleal

Personal information
Full name	Noel Harvey Cleal
Nickname	Crusher
Born	(1958-10-16) 16 October 1958 Warialda, New South Wales, Australia
Playing information
Position	Second-row, Centre
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1980–1982	Eastern Suburbs	70	26	1	0	80
1983–1989	Manly-Warringah	125	43	10	0	192
1985–1986	Widnes	16	12	0	0	44
1989–1990	Hull	31	15	0	0	60
	Total	242	96	11	0	376
Representative
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1985–1986	Australia	10	5	0	0	20
1984–1988	New South Wales	12	3	0	0	12
1987	Country Origin	1	1	0	0	4
Coaching information
Club
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
1991	Hull
Source: Rugby League Project Yesterday's Hero

Noel Harvey "Crusher" Cleal (born in Warialda, New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league footballer who also had a successful coaching career. A destructive Second Rower for the Manly Sea Eagles, he also represented New South Wales in the State of Origin Series and the Australian national rugby league team.

Club career

Noel Cleal along with his brother Les came to Sydney first-grade rugby league having already established a name for himself in the country. He had captain-coached the Wondai side to a country premiership in Queensland, and steered an undefeated Sawtell Panthers to a Clayton Cup^{[citation needed]} and maiden premiership, then represented for New South Wales Northern Division against the touring Great Britain Lions in 1979.

"Crusher" began his Sydney career with Eastern Suburbs Roosters in 1980 where he played at Centre. He had three seasons with the Roosters before following coach Bob Fulton to Manly in 1983. Following the move to Manly, Fulton switched Cleal to Second-row, a move which assisted Cleal's ascendancy to State and National representative honours.

Before the start of the 1987 NSWRL season, the Manly board had wanted coach Fulton to install Cleal as club captain replacing Paul Vautin. Fulton however had other ideas and Vautin retained the captaincy. After missing the first eight games of the season while recovering from a broken arm suffered against Hull on the 1986 Kangaroo tour, Cleal returned to the side from the bench in the Round 9 clash with Easts at Brookvale Oval (scoring the winning try from a Paul Vautin kick). From then on he played each game from the second row, helping the Sea Eagles to their 1987 Grand Final win over the Canberra Raiders in the last grand final played at the Sydney Cricket Ground (Cleal, who was one of the Sea Eagles better players on an unseasonably hot day, suffered a knock to the head during the game and finished the match on the bench). During that year the relationship between Vautin and Cleal was reported to be 'frosty' as a result of the captaincy saga, though both players dispute the claims.

Following from a 1985-86 stint with the Widnes club, Cleal returned to English rugby league in 1989 for two seasons with Hull after injury had restricted him to only 4 games for Manly during the 1989 Winfield Cup season. Cleal retired from playing following the 1990–91 English season.

Representative career

Cleal represented the NSW Blues in 12 State of Origin games between 1984 and 1988. Some of Cleal's best football was played at the State of Origin level, he was the NSW forward who troubled Queensland most at a time when the Blues were just beginning to match the passion of their interstate rivals. He is commonly known as the man who coined the inspirational phrase "Dare to Dream" which was an extract from the game and series winning pep talk given by him during half time of game 2 of the 1985 state of origin series.

Cleal played 8 Tests for Australia in 1985 and 1986 including the 1986 Kangaroo tour.

Post playing

In his first year as coach of Hull, Cleal took the club to British premiership victory in the 1990-91 season, a season which included coaching Hull to a 34-4 loss against Australia who were on the 1990 Kangaroo tour.^[1] On his return to Australia in 1992 he was appointed junior development and recruitment officer with the Parramatta Eels. In 2004 Cleal returned to Manly in a similar role, but moved to the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in 2012 (along with Manly coach Des Hasler) following the Sea Eagles 2011 NRL Grand Final win over the New Zealand Warriors.

Accolades

In 1984 he was the runner up in the Rothman's Medal competition. In 1985 was runner up as the Dally M Second Rower of the year.

In 2000 Cleal was awarded the Australian Sports Medal for his representative career for his country and state, and his supportive of Junior League at Local and regional level.

In 2005 he was named one of the 25 greatest ever players for NSW.

Matches played

His son Kane made his first grade debut with Manly in 2004. Kane is currently playing for Canterbury Bulldogs in 2007.

References

External links

• Noel Cleal at stateoforigin.com.au