Laurie Daley

He represented Australia on 26 occasions and has since been named as one of the nation's finest of the 20th century.

Laurie William Daley AM (born 20 October 1969), also known by the nicknames of "Lozza" and "Loz", is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and a former player who played as a and in the late 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.

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 teammate 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 the Winfield Cup was smashed, not by Daley dropping it as was reported by the press, but when it fell from the rear tray of Ford T bucket hot rod both were riding in when the hot rod hit a bump in the road.

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.

Daley played for the Canberra Raiders during their most successful period in the 1990s.

Daley was born in Junee, New South Wales, Australia to a white father from the small village of Nangus, New South Wales and an Aboriginal mother of the former Aboriginal Mission Wantabadgery, Wantabadgery, New South Wales.

Laurie is the third youngest of eight children.

He is the only boy amongst seven sisters.

Part way through the 1990 NSWRL Premiership season Daley made his first appearance for Australia at 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 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, but played centre for three tests on tour (two against Great Britain and one against France).

The broken hand, and later a hamstring injury which saw him miss the second Test against France, restricted him to just 6 games on tour, 3 club games (against St Helens, Wigan and Leeds) and the 3 tests.

During the 1990 season, Canberra coach Tim Sheens shifted Daley from centre to five-eighth at the Raiders and popular theory was that he was being groomed to eventually take over the Test five-eighth role from Wally Lewis who was coming to the end of his career.

Daley helped the Raiders to back-to-back premierships when they defeated Penrith 18–14 in the Grand Final at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Following the Kangaroo Tour, Daley suffered a number of niggling injuries during the early part of the 1991 season, though he played well enough to retain his place in the NSW side for the 1991 State of Origin series (won 2–1 by Queensland), and although overlooked for the opining Trans-Tasman series test against New Zealand in Melbourne, was recalled into the side in the centres for the final two tests in Sydney and at Lang Park in Brisbane.

After losing in Melbourne, the Australians (with Daley one of their stars) won 44–0 in Sydney and 40–12 in Brisbane.

Canberra then limped into the Finals in defence of their crown, but suddenly found form and won high scoring games over Manly-Warringah and North Sydney to again face Penrith in the Grand Final.

However, with Ricky Stuart taking a groin injury into the game and Daley doing the same with a dodgy hamstring, the Raiders were eventually no match for the Royce Simmons and Greg Alexander inspired Panthers who won the day 19–12.

Daley's injury meant he was ruled out of the season ending Kangaroo tour of Papua New Guinea.

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 Trinity, and miss Australia's World Cup final win over Great Britain at Wembley following the 1992 NSWRL season, 1992 also saw Daley take over the captaincy of the NSW Origin team and after being knocked out during the first game in Sydney, Daley recovered to lead the Blues to a 2–1 series win over Queensland now captained by Canberra teammate and Australian team captain Mal Meninga.

Even though Daley was the incumbent New South Wales captain from 1992 to 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 and Australia, winning their respective competitions.

Daley recovered from injury to captain Australia in the absence of suspended captain 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.

As the incumbent NSW captain, Daley was selected as the vice-captain on the tour.

His 1994 tour was a happier one than 1990 with Daley playing in 9 games including all 4 tests on the tour.

In 1995, 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.