Tiger Tuqiri has sights on Origin

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Lote Tuqiri signs for th Wests Tigers
By Andrew Webster From: The Daily Telegraph February 05, 2010

The Wests Tigers confirmed the worst-kept secret in rugby league yesterday when they announced the signing of discarded Wallabies winger to a $1.2 million deal over three years.

Within hours of the club's revelation via their website, thoughts drifted **towards the possibility of the 30-year-old playing for Queensland as they aim to win their fifth consecutive Origin series.**

With Queensland and Broncos centre Justin Hodges sidelined with a ruptured achilles tendon, **there is a chance of Tuqiri making his first appearance for his state since 2002.**

"He is one of the best finishers in the game - in either code," Tigers coach Tim Sheens said. "In his discussions with us there was a real desire to play representative football again, which means he's coming here for the right reasons."

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Should Tuqiri command an immediate starting place?Should Tuqiri command an immediate starting place?

Tuqiri will join the Tigers in late March when his short-term stint with English rugby union club Leicester - which weighed in with an attractive offer for him to stay - ends.

Tuqiri said he was glad to have his future settled and was looking forward to returning to the NRL.

"There was plenty of speculation about my next career move," Tuqiri said. "I was really appreciative of the interest I received from a number of clubs which made my decision that much harder. I'm really excited to return to the NRL. There is no question it is one of the toughest sporting competitions in the world and I am confident Wests Tigers will enjoy great success in coming years."

The Daily Telegraph understands that a series of complicated third-party agreements convinced Tuqiri to return to the NRL but dragged out the negotiation process.

His signing came after three days of discussions involving Tigers boss Stephen Humphreys, who has been in England trying to seal the deal. There has been a volley of emails and calls between the Tigers boss and NRL CEO David Gallop, as well as salary cap auditor Ian Schubert, who has been in Auckland this week.

"It has been a lesson in getting salary-cap approval well before you do a contract instead of the back-end of negotiations," Gallop said.

Humphreys slammed the suggestion that the deal was done in October, which would have been in breach of salary cap-rules.

"I denied it then, and I deny it now. The fact is, it was done in the last couple of days. To say it was done any earlier is wrong."

Gallop also revealed he had spoken to Tuqiri about his termination from the ARU last year for disciplinary reasons - and was satisfied he was of suitable character for the game.

"I'm satisfied that would not preclude him from being registered to play in the NRL," Gallop said. "But because it is the subject of a confidentiality arrangement with the ARU it is not appropriate for us to disclose."
 
With suggestions that Tuqiri could be playing in the team against Parramatta in Round 3, and if he does get in all the games of origin that would mean barring injury, he would only miss the following games….....

Round 1........Manly @ SFS
Round 2.......Roosters @ SFS
Round 11......Newcastle @ Energy Australia
Round 14......Bye
Round 17......Brisbane @ Suncrop.......Well that is a pity!
 
**Tuqiri not content with merely returning to NRL**
GLENN JACKSON
February 6, 2010

SOMEWHERE in the middle of the lengthy negotiations that have brought Lote Tuqiri to Wests Tigers, the club's coach, Tim Sheens, phoned the player being courted. But this was no hard sell on Sheens's part, no opportunity to heap praise on the dual international. Sheens just wanted to know whether Tuqiri was fair dinkum about this move.

''He wanted to know if I was coming back for the right reasons,'' Tuqiri told the Herald yesterday. ''He wanted to know my true intentions, and I understand where he's coming from. Some guys in the past have played one option off the other, and I didn't want to go down that road.''

And so the road that **Tuqiri went down is the one seemingly less travelled - for love, not money**. Sheens admitted yesterday that had Tuqiri been solely motivated by money, his club would not have been a hope. But he knew after his phone call to the former Brisbane Bronco, playing for Leicester after being sacked by the Australian Rugby Union last year, that he was worth pursuing.

''Our interview was about coach-player, not contract-player, in respect to money,'' Sheens said. ''What I wanted to talk to him about was why he wanted to come back to the game when he's quite comfortable playing union, and could probably play forever if he wanted to in various European or Japanese jumpers or whatever. But he wanted the challenge of coming back. He wanted to represent again.

''It wasn't just about money.

''I see that as a bonus for us, because what we're looking at is a player that is trying to achieve more than just playing for Wests Tigers. I don't want anyone coming back saying I'm just happy to play for the club. That means he's not setting his goals high enough.''

Tuqiri concedes that, at 30 and having had mixed success in rugby in his final seasons in the code, there will be some who believe his best days are behind him. But he has set himself goals that include doing what fellow league-union-league converts Wendell Sailor and Mat Rogers failed to do when they returned to the code, playing for Queensland again.

''There's always doubters and haters,'' Tuqiri said.

''But I'm glass half-full. If I'm in the competition, **I want to play at the highest level, that being State of Origin and whatever. I'm not there to play tiddlywinks".**

**Sheens, who will initially ease Tuqiri back into the NRL on the wing but is open-minded about a switch to fullback or centre,** said the signing of Tuqiri was the biggest for the club since its first days, when the likes of Jarrod McCracken and Terry Hill were wooed.

''He's as good a finisher as anyone in either code,'' Sheens said.

Tuqiri was just as complimentary when talking of the Tigers.

''The main reason _is I don't mind their style of play,'' Tuqiri said. **''The big thing for me is enjoyment, and they play an exciting brand of football and they don't die wondering. I just want to go back out there and enjoy myself - not that I haven't been, but I want to run the ball.**\
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''I want to get my running game back and get a bit of enjoyment back, as well as play with guys like Benji [Marshall], Robbie Farah and Chris Lawrence, guys that set their team alight.\
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''Hopefully they're excited to have me there, because I'm very excited about going there.''\
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It represents a new chapter for Tuqiri after last year's horrors. He said of that period, and the fact his latest decision meant he would be walking straight back into that type of scrutiny: ''I just tried to move on and be as positive as I could, try and find something positive out of some of the negativity going on.''\
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''I left that where it was, I left Sydney - I have enjoyed not being in the spotlight. I had to think about that, sit down with my wife and understand what being a rugby league player in Sydney brings.\
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''But we're comfortable with what we have to do.''\
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Tuqiri has already been forced to submit to NRL chief executive David Gallop questions about the reasons for his sacking by the ARU.\
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''We had a chat, squaring things off,'' Tuqiri said. ''He said he was going to do it, and he had to in the end. It was a brief chat.\
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''He was happy with what I had to say, and I was happy with what he had to say. He said, 'If things work out, welcome to the NRL.'''_
 
Tuqiri says he has a whole Lote left

* By Andrew Webster
* From: The Daily Telegraph
* February 06, 2010 12:00AM
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LOTE Tuqiri doesn't want to rub the Australian Rugby Union's nose in it - yet he admits he will relish the chance to prove John O'Neill made the wrong call.

Still basking in the afterglow of his decision to return to the NRL after a tumultuous seven years playing rugby union, Tuqiri says he wants to show the ARU they made a mistake in terminating his contract last July.

"Now I'm in a position to do that," said Tuqiri, who has signed a three-year deal to join the Wests Tigers from the end of next month. "That will be up to me. Hopefully, I can prove those people wrong. I don't know if that's what I'm doing it for, but it will certainly be going on there subconsciously."

While confidentiality clauses have prevented Tuqiri and the ARU from speaking publicly about his dismissal, he did have to discuss the circumstances with NRL CEO David Gallop before signing with the Tigers.

It was reported in The Sunday Telegraph last year that Tuqiri broke strict team rules for taking a woman to his Wallabies hotel room - although he has never confirmed or commented publicly about the story.

"I don't feel that I'm done with yet, that's the main thing," he said. "I've still got plenty to offer and that's why I want to test myself in a top-class competition that is the NRL.

"That's not having a dig at rugby. I love the game. You could be bitter but I made a lot of good friendships there and I'm quite tight with a lot of boys. I spent seven years there.

"It's a great game. It's just sad I won't be playing it.

"And my former teammates at the Waratahs and Wallabies have been great through all of this. I still have a lot of the texts that were sent to me around then. There were things they couldn't say at the time."

Tuqiri tells you this down a phoneline from Leicester, where he has been playing for the last three months as he works out his playing future. He insists he almost decided to stay in the dark of England with Leicester but ultimately realised a move back to their Birchgrove home was best for his wife Rebekka and their two young sons.

Television crews and photographers would remember the address. They were camped outside Tuqiri's house for days after his shock termination from the ARU.

"It will be a nice change - because last year was tough," Tuqiri admitted. "I've always been a bloke who takes on the positives rather than the negatives. But there was a lot of negativity around me. You walk down the street and people were still patting you on the back and saying things were going to be all right - but I wasn't playing any footy. That was the tough thing about it.

"I was just sitting at home, doing my own training, getting down on myself because I wasn't doing any physical activity. It was quite tough. I've got a good family and a good wife who put up with me being home a fair bit. Which is good. In that sense, it's all about being positive. I've certainly enjoyed being around my two boys a fair bit more in that time."

At the age of 30, he can still enjoy some golden years in rugby league, too. For his part, he is "pumped" at the idea of being coached by Tim Sheens and playing alongside Benji Marshall and young guns like Chris Lawrence and Tim Moltzen.
 
No grudges against Lote says Maroons selector Morris

* Wayne Heming
* From: AAP
* February 05, 2010 4:42PM
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QUEENSLAND selector Des Morris says any potential return to State of Origin by Lote Tuqiri would not be impeded by any grudges held over from when he switched to rugby union in 2002.

Tuqiri's return to the NRL with Wests Tigers is timely for Queensland with international centre Justin Hodges in danger of missing this year's series after rupturing his achilles tendon last month.

The Fijian-born Tuqiri, who walked out on the Brisbane Broncos and his representative career to accept a massive offer from the 15-man game, would need to hit his straps quickly but Morris said he would definitely get a fair go from Queensland selectors.

"He's a quality player and he's a Queenslander, so that's all we need," Morris said.

Tuqiri, who played 99 games for Brisbane, scored five tries in his six Origin appearances in 2001-2002.

"As long as he can adjust back to rugby league reasonably quickly ….. but we've got a lot of young blokes around who've been impressing.

"There's certainly no animosity and we appreciate what he did for us when he played for Queensland before.

"If the opportunity comes up for him to play for Queensland again there certainly wouldn't be an barriers in his way.

"The game has changed and he wanted to better himself financially, that's how things are these days."

The image of Israel Folau and Tuqiri or Greg Inglis and Tuqiri on the flanks for Queensland paints quite a big picture.

"There'd be some big boys and NSW will probably have the Morris boys who are also big guys," said Morris.

Morris didn't see Tuqiri's age of 30 being an Origin hurdle.

Queensland have often been dubbed Dad's Army by Blues supporters but they have won a record four straight series and are keen to make it five this year.

"Age doesn't come into when we consider our side," especially in the position he will play, said Morris.

"We've got Petero [Civoniceva] and [Steve] Price and even Locky [Darren Lockyer] to a lesser degree who are on the wrong side of 30 and it's never been an issue."
 
@Aladinsane said:
With suggestions that Tuqiri could be playing in the team against Parramatta in Round 3, and if he does get in all the games of origin that would mean barring injury, he would only miss the following games….....

Round 1........Manly @ SFS
Round 2.......Roosters @ SFS
Round 11......Newcastle @ Energy Australia
Round 14......Bye
Round 17......Brisbane @ Suncrop.......Well that is a pity!
Click to expand...

I think if Lotes playing well enough to be in the Queensland side, then we could afford for him to miss a couple of games..
 
Tab Sportbet just posted odds of Lote playing or not playing in the SOO Series
Playing …only $1.10
Not playing ...$6.50

Looks like the Tigers for the first year of the history being hit by SOO player drain
Tuqiri
Farah
Galloway
Lawerence
Motzen maybe
Here's one of left field ...Gibbs & Fulton
 
No way is Giibs out of left Field….All Tiger front row in Origin.....Bring It On!!!!

:laughing: Someone said we never sign Rep quality players from other NRL Clubs........no need .....We build them.....
 
Rep Players plenty coming through the ranks….

I am hoping for at least 4 Wests Tigers players in the Blues squad this year 😛ray: , giving those friggin Queenslanders a 3 games slaughter....and then all WT fans can say that the previous 4 series losses was due because there wasn't enough Tigers in those losing NSW teams
 
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