Former NRL star Joey Leilua has revealed in a tell-all interview of his desire to still one day get in the ring with “grub” Paul Gallen.
Ahead of his fight against exiled NRL star Curtis Scott — on a stacked card featuring Sam Goodman and Issac Hardman in Wollongong on March 13 -— Leilua sat down with boxing promoter George Rose on an episode of theNo Limit Boxing Podcast.
Rose, a former NRL prop who is now the CEO of No Limit Boxing, said he “hated” Gallen on the football field to which Leilua responded he did as well and that he “wanted to fight him”.
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“I still want to fight him if he wants it but I think he’s retired. He’s a good fella,” Leilua said.
“He stepped on my head in my rookie year, in my second game of the year and he still remembers it because I’ve always brought it up to him and he’d say ‘shut the ‘f**k up’ and I just wanted to punch his head in.
“I remember playing the ball and my hands on the ground and as I’m about to stand up, he stood on me and looked at me. And I thought, ‘you f*cking fat f*ck’ but I was skinny back then so I couldn’t say it.”
“He literally stood on my hand and looked at me and I thought ‘you f*cking grub’.
“That’s when I knew, he is a grub. But then I realise that he’s just a competitor, he just wants to get it over you and that’s what I admired about him. He just didn’t give a s**t and he wanted to win and that was his mentality.
“It was (a love-hate relationship).”
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When Rose asked Leilua if he ever had a chance to get any payback on Gallen, the former Roosters, Knights, Raiders and Tigers centre said he certainly tried.
“I think I kneed him in the groin, not the groin, the thigh. I used to try and rip his head the other way.
“He’s that tough though cause he’ll do it back to you. He’s a tough dude. I loved how he played.”
Leilua’s bout with Scott next month will be his third professional fight.
It will be Scott’s professional debut with the disgraced outside back turning to boxing after his bid to return to the NRL was denied due to being convicted of domestic violence charges.
Leilua says he believes he and Scott are “the most hated people in the NRL”.
“He’s one person more hated than me,” Leilua said.
“That’s weird. But for us, it’s about showcasing there’s more to us than people think we are … they only see me, the grub, apparently.”
Leilua, who played 225 NRL games for four clubs, last featured in the league in 2021 for the Tigers.
His time in the NRL had no shortage of controversy, with a short fuse on the field sometimes costing his team through cheap and dumb penalties.
The 32-year-old admitted he was a dirty player at times, but it came from a will to win more than anything else.
He also spoke about some of the guys he clashed with on the field, as well as revealing former teammates who he thinks could follow his path into boxing after their NRL careers are over.
WILL CHAMBERS
“He is one of the funniest guys to be on the field. He can spray. you can hear him from the other side of the field,” Leilua said.
“There was one game against the Storm and Justin Olam was playing (my side of the field) and Chambers was all the way over on the other side and he came over just to give me s**t.
“But that’s how he was. He fed off it.”
NELSON ASOFA-SOLOMONA
“Nelson was a big f*****g thing. Whenever we (Samoa) played against the Kiwis, he would just wreck our team, smashing us and running over everyone.
“He took a tap and I was like, ‘I’m going to f*****g hurt you, I don’t even care’. You can even ask the other guys, he ran off the tap and it was just me and I ran straight up to him and I went over the top and hit him in the chest but once he was on the ground I just elbowed him.
“He gets up and he starts laughing because they got a penalty so I said ‘come on, come again, I’ll do the same thing’.
“That’s how I was when I played. I didn’t really care how big he was I just wanted to hurt him and show him.”
WHO WOULD HOLD THEIR OWN IN THE BOXING RING
“I reckon Josh Papali’i can throw them,” Leilua revealed.
“Joseph Tapine, he’s got power man. He’s a killer and he’s one of the people who earns his money whereas me I’d just turn up this game or that game, but he’d turn up every week.”
RELATIONSHIP WITH RICKY STUART
Leilua’s longest stint at a club was with the Raiders between 2015-2019, with his last game for Canberra was the heartbreaking grand final loss to the Roosters.
While he admits he “fell apart” with Stuart by the end of his five-year tenure in the nation’s capital, Leilua loved playing for ‘Sticky’.
“He’s a good guy we just fell apart at the end. Part of the reason was me but at the same time, Sticky’s a tough person – if he’s off you, he’s off you,” Leilua said.
“I think that’s when I came to terms that (our relationship) would be hard to fix and that’s why we went our separate ways.
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“As a coach, he was a great coach. He knew what to do with his players and did well with the players.
“But I’ve had so many sprays from him. Just like, ‘you f***ing lazy shit’”.
“Some of the things he says (in press conferences) are true and I feel for him at times. He’s an emotional guy that wears his heart on his sleeve.
“He coaches the boys and he’s been a player and he knows the players can’t speak out so he does it for him. That’s what you have to admire about Sticky, he speaks out for his players even if he knows he’ll get fired. You’ve got to admire that.”
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