Laurie Daley

Laurie Daley

Daley at rugby league centenary celebrations in 2008
Personal information
Full name	Laurie William Daley
Nickname	Lozza
Born	(1969-10-20) 20 October 1969 Junee, New South Wales, Australia
Playing information
Height	183 cm (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	92 kg (14 st 7 lb)
Position	Five-eighth, Centre, Lock
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1987–00	Canberra Raiders	244	87	44	9	445
Representative
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1988–96	NSW Country	7	3	0	0	12
1989–99	New South Wales	23	6	1	0	26
1990–99	Australia	21	11	0	2	46
1997	NSW (SL)	3	0	0	0	0
1997	Australia (SL)	5	4	0	0	16
Coaching information
Representative
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
2008–12	NSW Country	5	2	1	2	40
2011–15	Indigenous All Stars	4	2	0	2	50
2013–16	New South Wales	12	5	0	7	42
2013–14	PM's XIII	2	2	0	0	100
Source: [1][2]

Laurie Daley AM (born 20 October 1969 in Junee, New South Wales) is a professional Australian rugby league football coach currently in charge of the New South Wales State of Origin team. Daley is also a former player, having represented Australia on 26 occasions and has since been named as one of the nation's finest 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

1980s

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 by 1987, including being a non-playing reserve for the Raiders in their 18-8 Grand Final loss to Manly-Warringah at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Daley was playing representative rugby league before his 19th birthday in 1988 when he was selected to represent NSW Country in the annual City vs Country Origin game. He was the second highest try-scorer in the 1989 NSWRL season with sixteen tries, only one less than team mate Gary Belcher. He tasted premiership success with the Raiders 1989 in an extra-time game which saw Canberra defeat the Balmain Tigers 19-14, and in the ensuing celebrations dropped the Winfield Cup from a moving car.^[3] In the post season he travelled with the Raiders to England for the 1989 World Club Challenge, playing at centre in Canberra's 18-30 loss to Widnes at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester.

Daley played his first games for New South Wales in the 1989 State of Origin series.

1990s

Part way through the 1990 NSWRL Premiership season Daley made his first appearance for Australian at five-eighth against France in the NSW country town of Parkes, scoring a try on début. He would then play against New Zealand a month later in Wellington. At the end of the 1990 NSWRL season where the Raiders won their second consecutive Grand Final, Daley won the Raiders' player of the year award and was then selected for the 1990 Kangaroo Tour. He missed Australia's opening loss to Great Britain at Wembley Stadium due to a broken hand suffered in a previous tour match against Leeds,^[4] but played centre for the last four tests on tour (two against Great Britain and two against France).

During 1990, 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, which saw him unable to fulfill his contract at Wakefield Wildcats, and miss Australia's World Cup Final win over Great Britain at Wembley following the 1992 NSWRL season,^[5]

Daley recovered from injury to captain Australia in the absence of suspended captain Mal Meninga in the first Test against New Zealand in 1993, kicking the match-saving field goal and saving Australia from an embarrassing 14-13 loss (it was also his second field goal of the game). 1994 was again plagued by injury. For the third year running he captained NSW to an Origin series win over Queensland, before representing Australia in a mid season test against France at the Parramatta Stadium in Sydney. Following the test Daley underwent knee surgery , and recovered in time to help the Raiders easily win the Grand Final over Canterbury-Bankstown 36-12, scoring a 50-metre try in the first half and showing that he was back to 100% fitness. Following the Grand Final win, Daley was selected, along with six of his Canberra team-mates (Kangaroo captain Meninga, Ricky Stuart, Steve Walters, Brett Mullins and David Furner), to the successful 1994 Kangaroo Tour.

Controversy raged in 1995 when Ricky Stuart was preferred for the Canberra captaincy after Meninga's retirement , even though Daley had captained both New South Wales and Australia ahead of Stuart. Furthermore, the outbreak of the Super League War and Daley's subsequent support for the rival organisation saw him barred from representative games in 1995, including the World Cup at the end of the season. This was despite Daley and other Super League aligned players successfully taking the Australian Rugby League to court in a bid to be eligible for selection. While the ARL was forced to consider SL players, they weren't forced to select them, thus players like Daley missed a full year of representative games. Nonetheless, Daley was awarded 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 ARL, allowing Daley to compete in State of Origin. Even though Daley was the incumbent New South Wales captain from 1992-1994, Brad Fittler, who had also been appointed Australian captain in 1995, was retained as NSW captain. 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^[6] and Australia, winning their respective competitions. It was also this year Daley became a father, welcoming daughter Jaimee Frances Daley into the world on the 27th of May. 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.^[7] 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 opportunities; and he was forced into retirement in 2000. In September of that year, his book, Laurie: Always a Winner was published.

Post-playing

From 2008-2012 he was the coach of the NSW Country Origin team.

Laurie Daley working for the Nine Network

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 2010, after New South Wales suffered their fifth consecutive series defeat and their first Origin whitewash (a series lost 0–3) since 2000, he was sacked as the state's team selector.

However, on 21 August 2012 Daley was appointed the NSW State of Origin coach from 2013, taking over from former Canberra team mate Ricky Stuart who, under NSW policy of their Origin coach not being a current NRL club coach, was ruled out after agreeing to coach the Parramatta Eels in 2013. Daley got the job in preference to other candidates including Trent Barrett, Brad Fittler and Daniel Anderson.^[8] Daley lead the Blues to their first series win in 2014, finally breaking the QLD dynasty and delivering the Blues their first series win since 2005.

In 2014, Daley became only the second man after Wayne Pearce to play, captain and coach a Blues side to a series win over Queensland.^[9]

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.^[10]

In August 2008, Daley was named at five-eight in the Indigenous Team of the Century.^[11]

On 11 January 2013, the local football ground in his home town of Junee was renamed Laurie Daley Oval.^[12]

References

Further reading

• Taylor, Gail (1998). Livewire Real Lives: Laurie Daley. Sydney, N.S.W.: Hodder Education. ISBN 978-0-7336-0708-0. 
• Daley, Laurie; Middleton, David (2000). Laurie: always a winner. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-7322-6906-7. 

External links

• Laurie Daley at stateoforigin.com.au
• Laurie Daley at rl1908.com
• Statistics at rugbyleagueproject.org