This is kind of the point folks are making....if Cleary doesn’t have the all round game a #7 should have, then why is he in an Origin? It’s not a development arena.
I think it's due to the fact that he's better in all other areas of his game then the other "contenders".
A halfback isn't there just to create points (yes the best halves in history were able to do both, but Cleary's role wasn't designed to play this way for Freddy's team.)
Freddy wanted someone who is ALL effort, strong defensively, has good game management and is a strong kicker of the footy. Cleary has this is spades and in my opinion, dwarfs the other NSW halves in the comp (only exception is Pierce)
Regardless if people believe he's not living up to expectations, he done EXACTLY what Freddy employed him to do. If the strategy is for Clearly to follow through with the above as mentioned and have a running/ ball playing 5/8th take care of the "fancy" stuff, is that Cleary's fault completely?
Personally I think Cleary has a good running game - this was evident in the under grades where he was leading point scorer year after year scoring a heap of tries based on his running game. The way the Panthers AND NSW use him is a game manager.
If NSW's forwards were doing their job, and our 5/8th did his - no one would be crying about Cleary as much.
You can't put an entire series on 1 bloke.
Yes, he's no Johns, Thurston etc. But he's the best we have with the design Freddy has in place.
I just think people have been way to harsh on him instead of focusing on the fact our team struggles to compete under pressure and constantly get dominated by the QLD forwards.