And there in lies the problem, and the risk. He might be better than Cleary, unlikely but possible but would you take that much of a cap risk? No.
This is where the overall cap rising comes into play. Ideally you'd want your star NRL players to be earning say 10-20% more than any star Union player could. Say a star Union player is earning $1.5mill in union, your star NRL player is earning $1.8mill. (Googling it looks like there's only a couple of Union players on that sort of money with the rest under $1mill
https://frontofficesports.com/highest-paid-rugby-players/)
You're not going to risk $1mill+ of your cap on a Union player but you could offer him $1.2mill if its only costing $600k on the cap then it would be worth the risk. It'd be time limited say 2-3 years each player. Takes the risk away whilst attracting their top talent to NRL. I reckon if you seriously scouted across the Union world there'd easily be 50 or so players you'd take the risk on.
IF the next TV deal lands the $100millplus a year increase then its quite possible we could see NRL star earnings heading to around $1.5mill