A destructive second-row for the Manly Sea Eagles, he also represented New South Wales in the State of Origin Series and the Australian national rugby league team.

Before the start of the 1987 NSWRL season, the Manly board had wanted coach Fulton to install Cleal as club captain replacing Paul Vautin.

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).

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.

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.

During Game 2 of the 1984 series on a wet and very muddy Sydney Cricket Ground, Cleal attempted a goal-line drop out after the Blues had been caught in their own in-goal area.

Unfortunately for Cleal and NSW, his attempted kick travelled less than a metre resulting in a Qld penalty from which Mal Meninga scored two vital points.

After NSW won the 1986 State of Origin series 3-0 (the first clean sweep in Origin history), Cleal then played in all 3 tests of the 1986 Trans-Tasman Test series against New Zealand (won 3-0 by the now Don Furner coached Aussies), before being selected for the 1986 Kangaroo Tour of Great Britain and France where he played 7 games (including one on the wing against Halifax at Thrum Hall) and scored 3 tries.

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.

Kane played professional rugby league for South Sydney Rabbitohs, Canterbury Bulldogs and Manly Sea Eagles.