|
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 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 . 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 , 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. During the 1988 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand, Cleal captained what was a makeshift Manly side that was missing 6 regular first grade players to a famous 30-0 win over the Lions at Brookvale Oval. Manly had gone into the mid-week match missing captain Paul Vautin, centre Michael O'Connor, prop forward Phil Daley (all rested for the following weekends first Ashes series test against the Lions), as well as fullback Dale Shearer, winger David Ronson and hooker Mal Cochrane. Cleal had a point to prove in the game against the Lions after controversially being left out of Australia's squad for the Ashes series. Following from a 1985-86 stint with English club Widnes, 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 season, during which he had become coach of Hull following the departure of Brian Smith to St George. This included coaching Hull (from the sidelines) when they played the Bob Fulton coached Australians at The Boulevard during the 1990 Kangaroo Tour in which the Kangaroos defeated Hull 34-4. After the game Cleal told Channel 10 who were covering the tour that ''"I'm sitting on both sides of the fence here. Its good to see the Aussies play so well, especially with the third test coming up. But I thought that our guys were just outclassed, they were a far better side. And I suppose when you're hot, you're hot and the Aussies were hot tonight. That was the end of the story."'' Despite the heavy defeat to the Kangaroos, the Cleal coached Hull would go on to win the Premiership for the 1990–91 season, defeating the defending premiers Widnes 14-4 in the Premiership Trophy Final at Old Trafford, Manchester on Sunday 12 May 1991. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Noel Cleal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|