NRL 2020: Les Cleal on how Kerry Packer brought him to the Roosters

Les Cleal was happy enough at the pub in the bush – but Kerry Packer’s relentless pursuit of him led the cult figure on a journey to rugby league stardom.

When the old landline rang inside Werris Creek’s historic Railway Hotel, it usually meant a sloshed local being ordered home after downing one beer too many.

But in the summer of 1981, the calls were accompanied with long-distance beeps from a threatening man known globally for his loathing of failure.

“Hello, Railway Hotel,” the barman would answer.

The gravelly-voiced caller would respond: “Packer here, I want to speak to Les Cleal, he’s drinking in the public bar.”

And with that, Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer’s relentless pursuit of big Les Cleal, the country rugby league powerhouse, began.

Watch Australia v India Test Series Live & Ad-Break Free During Play with the Fox Cricket commentary team. New to Kayo? Get your free trial now & start streaming instantly >

Noel and Les Cleal together.

Packer and good mate, rugby league Immortal Bob Fulton, wanted Les – who had dominated country football throughout NSW and Queensland – to play with the Eastern Suburbs Roosters in 1982. And who was Les to knock back one of the world’s richest media tycoons?

This is the tale of a bearded bushranger and a billionaire.

Fulton was the Roosters coach, Packer a mad Easts fan, and they had read and heard all about rampaging Les from his brother, Noel, who had shifted to the big smoke of Sydney to play with Easts a year earlier.

It’s unfathomable to think Packer – who was worth a cool $6.5 billion – would actually have the drive and desire to track down Les at the 112-year-old Railway Hotel and make him a Rooster.

Packer rang the pub multiple times until he got his man.

Eventually, Packer and Les would become good mates. Les would sell Packer pig dogs while the two of them – along with Noel and Fulton – would go pig shooting in rural NSW.

Les, now 64, and Noel, 63, became icons of country football. Their famous, flowing beards remain, only now the whiskers are grey.

Brothers Noel and Les Cleal on Noel’s property on the NSW mid north coast. Picture: Nathan Edwards

“Kerry Packer was one of the people that played a big role in getting Les to Sydney. He was a huge fan of Les. Kerry spent a fair bit of time on the phone telling Les he would handle it in Sydney. He convinced Les if he came down he would play first grade,” Noel said.

“He and Bozo (Fulton) concocted a plan to get Les out of the bush. Between the three of us, we got him to Sydney.

“I think Kerry was a little bit intrigued with Les. Packer even bought dogs off Les to chase pigs. He was intrigued by what Les was about. Kerry actually gave Les a bone-handled knife with the signature of (US golfer) Andy Bean on it.

“Kerry used to come and train with us. He was quite skilful for a big man, his hand-eye coordination was good. Les and I went away hunting with him a few times in his helicopter and Learjet. We were pretty fortunate to have that association.

“Actually, Kerry wanted to back Les into becoming a boxer. When we came down we would spar at City Tatts and Packer offered Les five times more than what he was on at Easts to become a boxer.

“Because we had been away hunting with him, he wasn’t Kerry the businessman when we were with him, he was just one of us; a bloke that enjoyed a bacon roll for breakfast. He didn’t drink but we made up for that.

“We used to go out hunting to western NSW, Goondiwindi in south Queensland, Toobeah. But we can’t stress enough that Kerry wouldn’t have been involved if it hadn’t been for Bozo. It was a special feeling playing with your brother. I knew that between the three of us (Noel, Fulton and Packer) we would talk Les into it.”

Kerry Packer.

Bob Fulton.

Les only stayed one year in Sydney before fleeing the hustle and bustle. But he left a huge and lasting impression.

He collected Easts’ player of the year award, helped drive his side into the NSWRL preliminary final against Jack Gibson’s Parramatta and almost pinched a spot in the unbeaten 1982 Kangaroos. And he had Packer to thank for his success.

“I think Kerry felt comfortable with us,” Les said.

“He talked to you openly, he was a great fella and easy to talk to. I was back at Werris Creek when he would ring. Most of the time he caught me was when I was at the pub, The Railway Hotel. It would be Kerry and Bozo on the phone.

“It was a confidence thing, them being sure I was good enough to get to Sydney. That gave me a feel for it, that I could handle it. I was 25 by that stage. I had a lot to do with Kerry and Bozo was also good to us.”

Les recalls a story about a pig dog he once sold to Packer.

“When I took some dogs to Ellerston (Packer’s property in the Hunter) to see which ones Kerry wanted, he was lying on the lawn, there were three dogs to choose from,” Les said. “There was a big black dog which Kerry said would get too hot and he didn’t want the other dog, a little bitch.

“He then started patting this big fawn dog’s head and said: ‘You’re the luckiest dog in the world – you’re going to eat steak every day and you won’t have to catch any pigs for Les Cleal’.”

Les was – and still is - the ultimate bushie. Laidback with a country drawl, he struggled with the fast pace of Sydney.

The Cleal brothers together during their playing days.

There was the time Les drove from his home near Campbelltown to Easts training at the old Sydney Sports Ground, in Moore Park, in a cloth-roof Mini Moke with three dogs in the back seat and a goat in the front.

“He couldn’t leave them at home because there wasn’t much harmony between them,” Noel said. Les tied each to one tyre of the car. Problem solved.

Then there was the old mongrel pig dog, Scamp, which travelled around the bush with Noel and Les on their footy journey. If the dog wasn’t welcome, the two boys – and another Warialda mate Bob Barker — wouldn’t sign.

“Scamp was part of the deal,” Noel said.

“We all went together — from Warialda to Wondai, Sawtell, Scone, and won premierships along the way, and all with Scamp.”

The Cleals’ father, Harvey, was a shearer, their mum, Jesse, a cocky’s daughter.

When Harvey was once out west shearing to earn some cash, the kids would sneak out at midnight to catch and kill a pig so the family had meat for the rest of the week.

“I didn’t go much in Sydney. It was better living out there (near Campbelltown) than in the city. After 1982, Noel and a few mates went to Manly and Canberra. So I wasn’t keen on staying,” Les said.

“The main thing for me was to prove I could do it and I did that. I was happy with what I did. I like to move around a bit, here and there. I don’t stay in too many places for more than two years.

“I love the country way of life. It’s a terrific life in the bush. There is always something to do, whether it’s fishing, hunting or playing footy, cricket or tennis, whatever you want.

“I’m back at Warialda now. I’m too buggered to work. I’m on a little 10-acre block I muck around on.”

Noel and Les Cleal feed the cows. Picture: Nathan Edwards

Noel interrupts: “He grows the best tomatoes in Warialda.”

Noel splits his time between Belrose on Sydney’s northern beaches — while working as Manly’s recruitment manager — and spending some free time on a 150-acre farm at Pappinbarra, 20 minutes outside of Wauchope.

“I run about 40 cows and a lot of chooks,” Noel said. “Les and I had a 10-day pig shooting trip after the season. We kind of supervise these days and spend most of the time knocking up a feed in the camp.

“Les and I have always been outdoor blokes. I missed the country when I first came to Easts. We would go ‘pigging’ or marking calves, steer wrestling and chasing pigs in the main.

Les Cleal in action in 1982.

“I probably missed that more than anything. We used to do that nearly every weekend. I’m a bushie at heart, a farrier by trade; no more of a bushie than that.

“We had five years playing in the bush before I went to Sydney and then Les had a further two years before he came down. We played at Wondai, up in Queensland, Scone, Sawtell and Lismore. In those five years, I think we won three, four comps – we had a bit of fun.

“At the end of the day, Les coached 11 teams to grand finals and won nine, all around NSW and Queensland. He played for 13 different clubs. We have mates going back 50 years.

“I came to Sydney (in 1980) because I had probably done everything I could have in the bush; played for Country, won premierships. I thought if I don’t have a go I will never know, so I had a go.

“In that first year at Easts, I was lucky enough to play every game and we made the grand final. Initially, I didn’t like living in Sydney. Les and I were a bit like a marriage – he went one way and I went another.

“The next thing I am thrust into six lanes of highway at New South Head Road at Bondi Junction and I’m thinking: ‘What am I doing here?’ There were times when I was down on myself.

The Cleal brothers were cult heroes to footy fans. Picture: Nathan Edwards

“But I thought if I left I’d be seen as a quitter so I stayed. I was lucky that Bozo really invested in me as a player and person and he made the transition that much easier. He wasn’t so much a father figure but more the bloke who held my hand, so to speak.”

Noel and Les shared a beer just this week at the quaint Beechwood Hotel, 22km from Noel’s farm. They are brothers, but mostly importantly, they are old mates.

The pair mingled with locals, who were probably blissfully unaware that these two country dwellers once hung out with the country’s richest man.

“We played our first game together in the under 10s – Noel was nine, I was 10 — at a little ground in Barraba (90km from Tamworth) and our last competitive game together on the Sydney Cricket Ground in the 1982 final,” Les said

“From the footy fields of Barraba to the SCG – it was some journey.”

Originally published as NRL 2020: Les Cleal on how Kerry Packer brought him to the Roosters