I don't think Laurie is afraid at all. Very often he takes a dirty hitup and too often yesterday he was being thrown the ball with nothing on, so he has to tuck it under his arm and run into the guts of the defence. He didn't shirk any of that contact yesterday and he got hammered a number of times, including that early warning shot from Tino across the chops. I say this watching the match live and Laurie taking a lot of bomb defusals down my end.
The bloke's about 80 kg.
So I don't think it's fear, it's hesitation. He's not afraid, he's unable to calculate as fast as the game demands. Luke Brooks has exactly the same problem. They talk about "natural ability" and "having so much time", which really means that the player in question has a baked-in ability, a hardware/wiring ability to read a game and take the right option. The players who hesitate or think about it too much, they are always a moment behind the play and over 24 x 80 mins those 1% delays add up.
Compare for example Laurie to Brimson. Brimson isn't really a great technical fullback, doesn't have much of a passing or kicking game and has been tried, to no great effect, in the halves. But Brimson is athletically elite and he doesn't hesitate, which is his big advantage over Laurie. Brimson scored his late try because he picked a line and ran as fast as he could from moment zero; a moment of hesitation and the cover defence gets him.
I think, unfortunately, what we see with Laurie is a bloke who hesitates just that bit too often and it leads to crucial mistakes, despite his otherwise positive involvement in the match. Same as Brooks, who yesterday was most threatening when he took a pre-meditated run, but fairly ineffective with what ended up being a fair amount of possession down the right end of the park.
Doueihi also is a bit hesitant, but given enough opportunities yesterday he did start grinding out attacking chances and, ultimately, 2 tries. But he almost didn't run for his try, looking almost that bit too long for a pass, and it was instead his athleticism and ability to palm off David Fifita which clinched the play. Doueihi has upper-tier athleticism in terms of body shape and strength that someone like Laurie just doesn't possess and never will.