A specialist left winger, Cleeton, agreed club rugby in Hawke's Bay is a lot tougher than in Brisbane where he played for the Sunshine Coast Stingrays and was the top tryscorer in their competition last year with 18 in 16 games. However, he ranked the structures used in the Bay as similar to those adopted in Brisbane.
Cleeton singled out Napier Old Boys Marist winger Migao Lauano as the toughest player he has marked to date.
"Migao is very hard to defend against."
A product of Sunshine Coast Grammar School and Queensland Independent College, Cleeton started playing rugby as a 10-year-old. Not surprisingly, Wallabies wingers Lote Tuqiri and Digby Ioane were his heroes during his younger days.
Cleeton is rapt with the way Clive players and club members have welcomed himself and fellow Aussies Shane Parkinson and Kyle Beakey into the club.
"Everyone is so welcoming and so passionate about every level of the game. You don't get that back in Aussie."
Because he is between temporary work, Cleeton is spending a lot of his time helping with the coaching of Clive's age-group players.
"Many of our premier players try and do this as often as possible. It's great for the club culture."
Although Clive have only recorded two wins in the Nash Cup to date, Cleeton is looking forward to the Maddison Trophy round where he is predicting the side to register more wins.
"More often than not we're the underdogs. But we surprise teams with our attitude and that's a credit to Andy ... all the boys look up to him."
Cleeton's father Huan played rugby until he was 35 and his grandfather Forrest played professional soccer for Queensland. A keen motocross rider and snowboarder, Cleeton intends to travel to the South Island at the end of the rugby season to tackle the snow.
Once he does that there's a chance his appetite for the New Zealand way of life will see him increase those couple of seasons he plans to spend in the country.
