Laurie Daley

Laurie Daley

Daley at rugby league centenary celebrations in 2008
Personal information
Full name	Laurie William Daley
Nickname	Lozza, The Hook
Born	20 October 1969 (1969-10-20) Junee, New South Wales, Australia
Height	183 cm (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	92 kg (14 st 7 lb)
Playing information
Position	Centre→Five-eighth
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1987–00	Canberra Raiders	244	87	44	9	445
1991–92	Wakefield Trinity
	Total	244	87	44	9	445
Representative
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1988	Country Origin
1989–99	New South Wales	23	6	1	0	26
1990–99	Australia	21	11	0	2	46
1997	New South Wales (SL)	3	0	0	0	0
1997	Australia (SL)	5	4	0	0	16
Coaching information
Representative
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
2008	Country Origin	2	0	1	1	0
Source: RLP Yesterday's Hero

Laurie Daley OA (born 20 October 1969 in Junee, New South Wales) is an Australian rugby league football commentator and former player of Indigenous Australian descent. He represented Australia on 26 occasions and has since been named as one of the nation's finest players of the 20th century. Daley played primarily as a centre and then five-eighth for the Canberra Raiders during their most successful period in the 1990s.

Playing career

Spotted playing first grade for the Junee Diesels in 1986 at the age of sixteen, and after being signed by the Raiders, he developed as a centre and was playing first grade for Canberra by 1987. Daley was playing representative rugby league before his 19th birthday in 1988. He was the second highest try-scorer the following year with sixteen tries. He tasted premiership success with the raiders the following year and in the ensuing celebrations dropped the Winfield Cup from a moving car.[1] Daley disappointed in his first State of Origin games for New South Wales that year, but in 1990 he made his Australian début against France. At the end of the 1990 NSWRL season Daley also won the Raiders' player of the year award and went on the 1990 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain and France. He missed Australia's opening loss to Great Britain at Wembley Stadium due to a broken hand suffered in a previous tour match, but played centre for the last four tests on tour (two against Great Britain and two against France).

During 1991, Daley was shifted from centre to five-eighth at the Raiders. During the 1992 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand, he helped Australia retain The Ashes. Affected severely by a knee injury in 1992, Daley captained Australia in the absence of Mal Meninga in the first Test against New Zealand in 1993, kicking the match-saving field goal. 1994 was again plagued by injury, but he returned in time to win the title with the Raiders, contributing a vital try. He was selected, along with six of his Canberra team-mates, to the 1994 Kangaroo Tour of Great Britain and France.

Controversy raged in 1995 when Ricky Stuart was preferred for the Canberra captaincy, even though Daley had captained both New South Wales and Australia ahead of Stuart. Furthermore, the outbreak of Super League and Daley's subsequent support for the rival organisation saw him barred from representative games in 1995. Nonetheless, Daley was awarded Rugby League Week's Player of the Year award in 1995^{[citation needed]} and the Raiders' player of the year award in 1995, 1996 and 1997.

In 1996, Super League players were once again allowed to compete in representative fixtures sanctioned by the Australian Rugby League, allowing Daley to compete in State of Origin. Even though Daley was the incumbent New South Wales captain prior to 1995, Brad Fittler was preferred to the captaincy. The following year, the Super League competition was launched, and Daley was appointed to captain the Super League representative teams of both New South Wales and Australia, winning their respective competitions. In the opening match of the Super League Test series against Great Britain at the end of the 1997 season, The Australian side wore black armbands in memory of Daley's grandmother who'd died two days before. He captained the side and scored a hat-trick that match in The Kangaroos' emphatic victory. Daley also scored a try in Australi's victory in the third and deciding match.

In 1998, Super League and the Australian Rugby League agreed to combine to launch the National Rugby League competition. Daley took over the Canberra captaincy on a full-time basis after Stuart signed with Canterbury in 1999 and was once again named the Raiders' player of the year. Although Daley continued to make representative appearances, injuries began to limit his appearances; and he was forced into retirement in 2000. In September of that year, his book, Laurie: Always a Winner was published.

Post-playing

Laurie Daley statue at Canberra Stadium

Daley is now assistant coach of the New South Wales Blues and coach of the Country Origin team.

In September 2007, Daley left his commentary position with Fox Sports and signed a contract with the Nine Network to co-present much of their rugby league coverage, from appearing on the weekly rugby league topic show The Footy Show, to commentating on Nine's weekend league coverage.

In 2009 Daley left the Nine Network and returned to Foxtel.

In 2010 he stepped down as NSW team selector. He was the first person from the New South Wales administration to quit after five consecutive series defeats.

Laurie Daley working for the Nine Network

Accolades

In February 2008, Daley was named in the list of Australia's 100 Greatest Players (1908–2007) which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia.

In August 2008, Daley was named at five-eight in the Indigenous Team of the Century.

Further reading

• Taylor, Gail (1998). Livewire Real Lives: Laurie Daley. Sydney, N.S.W.: Hodder Education. ISBN 073360708X, 9780733607080. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jcRnHAAACAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
• Daley, Laurie; David Middleton (2000). Laurie: always a winner. HarperCollins. ISBN 0732269067, 9780732269067. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tF3BHAAACAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 

External links

• Laurie Daley at stateoforigin.com.au
• Laurie Daley at rl1908.com

Sporting positions
Preceded by Ricky Stuart	Canberra Raiders captain 1998–2000	Succeeded by Simon Woolford