The Penrith coach last week persuaded the two-man judiciary panel that son Nathan Cleary's high shot from the pre-season loss to Wests Tigers was worthy of being reclassified from a grade-two offence to grade one.
The elder Cleary's legal skills have cleared his son to line up against reigning premiers Brisbane in round one after he'd initially been suspended from the opening two rounds.
The halfback's ban would have been increased to three weeks had the audacious legal bid failed.
"Very relieving," the coach said.
"It was a disappointing thing to go through, actually, it was quite a big thing: either no weeks or three weeks for something that was pretty clearly grade one."
Judiciary panellists Ryan James and Greg McCallum were satisfied Cleary made primary contact with the shoulder of Heamasi Makasini and that the Tigers winger had lowered his body shortly before the tackle.
The four-time premiership-winning coach was adamant it had been clear to see the contact was not worthy of a grade-two charge, and hoped his foray into the legal industry could be a one-off.
"It was just one for that occasion. I don't think a lawyer needed to be able to show a couple of still shots and a video to show that it actually didn't happen," he said.
"Maybe the NRL need to update their TVs or something for the match review committee.
"I'd rather be giving (lawyer duties) to someone else, or we're not in there. That'd be better."
Cleary also hoped in future, the match review committee could take a more lenient stance during the pre-season given players have gone months without competitive matches.
"There needs to be a little bit of understanding that players are still trying to find their timing," he said.
"The frustrating thing was that it was just the wrong call and I think a lot of people back off from going to the judiciary because they're not that confident how that will work out.
"But I must say, it worked out well."
