‘I wanted to have a fallback option': Cleary's back-up career if footy didn't work out
But rewind 10 years to St Dominic's College in Penrith, and the NRL's best player was juggling junior football with the HSC as he prepared to study at university.
'I knew I wanted to be a footballer, but I didn't know it was going to become a reality. I definitely got stuck into my studies because it was sort of drilled into me by my parents, but I wanted to have a fallback option if footy didn't come through,' said Cleary.
'I was studying high school teaching at uni for about six months, and then I actually ended up playing first grade, so I fell out of that. I wanted to be a PE teacher, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. [I thought] I'll do this and have it there and fiddle around and see what happens.'
Cleary's story is just one of the many HSC success stories included in this year's HSC Study Guide which launches on Monday. It is the 50th annivesary edition of the guide, a partnership with the NSW Education Standards Authority, designed to support the 80,000 plus students sitting HSC exams this year and every year since 1975.
Now a decade on from sitting his HSC, he says he may have done things differently if he had his time again.
'I regret this, but I did two major work subjects at the time [Industrial Technology: Timber Products and Furniture], and then did general maths, standard English, PDHPE and one unit religion,' he said.
'It was just so much work, so much work. It was fun to do it, but staying back after school to get it done ... it was a mad rush towards the end, I was lucky I had great teachers that helped me, but it was tough to do two at a time.'
But the juggling act was a learning curve for Cleary, and it has translated to life in football.
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'I think it was the balance of footy, also studying enough, and then the two major projects threw a spanner in the works. Sometimes I had to choose between going to play footy or staying back and actually finishing my major work,' he said.
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