‘Holy s***’: Moment ex-NRL player ‘hit the wall’… and found himself on unlikely path to NFL

At the start of 2024, Laitia Moceidreke was at a crossroads.

Watch an average of 6 games each week during the regular season, plus every game of the NFL Postseason including the Super Bowl, LIVE on ESPN with Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer.

His rugby league career had, in his own words, “hit a wall”, and he told his partner Natalia that he was ready to give up footy at the end of the year.

“I’ll give it one more crack,” Moceidreke recalls telling Natalia, adding that if it didn’t work out he would’ve gone on to be either a teacher’s aid or School Learning Support Officer.

At that point, he was nearly ready to “throw in the towel”.

“I was kind of feeling down on myself,” Moceidreke added, having started the season for Newcastle in NSW Cup before being dropped and playing local grade footy instead.

His previous manager had brought up the idea of the NFL’s International Player Pathway (IPP) program in 2023, but at that point Moceidreke wasn’t really interested.

Although that had less to do with the program itself and more to do with the fact Moceidreke felt like he had more to give in rugby league.

But this year when the opportunity came up to take part in a one-day tryout at the NFL’s new academy based at the Gold Coast’s A.B. Paterson College, the circumstances were different.

Moceidreke wanted to give league one final crack. Playing consistent NRL was the goal. But when that didn’t happen, and he didn’t have any real offers for 2025, he thought “why not?”.

“It was kind of like my last option,” Moceidreke added.

Now, after being selected as one of three Australians in the NFL’s 10-week IPP development camp in Florida this season, that “leap of faith” has Moceidreke undergoing a crash course in a sport that he said may as well have been a foreign language.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

Fellow Australian and now Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata went through a similar process in 2018 before being drafted by Philadelphia. Now he is signed to a contract worth $100 million.

Mailata was once like Moceidreke; about to board a plane for the United States, wondering how far this boy from Sydney’s Western suburbs could go.

Moceidreke grew up in Wiley Park, just a few suburbs down the road from Mailata in Bankstown. He said Mailata has “definitely opened the doors for guys like myself”.

“And I want to be the next guy from our area to be making it.”

HOW AN UNLIKELY DREAM WAS BORN… AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Moceidreke, who started off playing rugby union as a kid before taking up league and sticking with it from 13 years old, scored a try in his NRL debut for the Cowboys back in 2021.

But it ended up being his only NRL appearance, otherwise biding his time in reserve grade where he played a total of 54 games for the Mackay Cutters and Newcastle Knights.

Moceidreke, a lifelong Bulldogs fan, came up through their system before jetting to Townsville midway through 2021. He was playing Jersey Flegg at the time but the opportunity, not only to make his NRL debut but also join the Cowboys’ top 30 squad the following year was enough to convince the then 21-year-old to make the move up north mid-season.

Now, Moceidreke is once again preparing to leave his old life behind, except this time the commute will be far longer.

Moceidreke leaves for the NFL’s 10-week IPP development camp in Florida this month, having initially impressed at the one-day tryout on the Gold Coast before then being invited back for two additional weeks of training and later a mini Pro Day, where he completed a 40-yard dash, broad jump and host of other drills similar to those seen at the NFL Combine.

The camp at IMG Academy features a mix of both field and classroom sessions, which will help prepare the athletes for a workout in front of NFL scouts before this year’s draft.

So far, 37 international players have signed with NFL teams since the program’s inception with 18 IPP athletes currently on NFL rosters, while five have made active rosters.

Mailata is one of those five players but unlike him, Moceidreke has the advantage of being able to train out of the NFL’s Gold Coast academy, which opened in September.

Although given he is currently based in Newcastle, it still means hopping on a plane every so often to try get in as many weeks and sessions as possible before leaving for Florida.

Moceidreke had got around six weeks in when he spoke to foxsports.com.au late last month, again all with an eye towards putting himself in the best position to impress the NFL scouts.

“We’re trying to get them ready for that camp in Florida, which is unique,” Will Bryce, head of APAC, the Gold Coast academy that services the entire Asia-Pacific region, told foxsports.com.au.

“We haven’t been able to do this before because we never had anyone here to do that… you just get a head start.”

Bryce used to be the NFL International’s head of football development and was working out another player in London in 2016 when he and another colleague, Aden Durd, were forwarded highlights of Mailata. From that one text message, “the best story in the NFL” was born.

He was also part of former AFL hopeful Patrick Murtagh’s journey from the IPP program to opportunities with both the Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars.

Now, having moved from England to the Gold Coast to head up the new academy, Bryce is seeing a lot more of Australia’s latest potential success stories, including Moceidreke.

Whether they’re in the meeting room, on the field, or watching film, Bryce said he and the rest of the staff are “trying to throw everything that we can” at the athletes.

“Then we can see what sticks and where we need to work with them a little bit more so they can put their best foot forward and have a great 10 week training camp out in the US to prepare for that workout in front of NFL clubs,” Bryce added.

Although there is no rush and what exactly they’re throwing at the athletes can differ depending on how familiar they are with the sport.

For some, it can start with the “absolute basics” including how many players are on the field, how much time there is in a quarter, how timeouts you get in a half.

For others, who already have some of those fundamentals down pat, they may focus instead on more specific topics like stance and how they should line up in specific formations.

Where do they put their feet? And their hands? What about their weight distribution? How do they get out of that stance versus the run, and how does that differ versus the pass?

“We just try and simulate it and immerse them in football,” said Bryce.

“And we’re not necessarily in a rush at this point either. So we can kind of take our time a little bit if they’re not getting something, we just stay with it, which is great.

“We make sure that they do have a solid foundation on which to build upon when they get to America, but then hopefully when they get to their teams and they can start to talk more football language and terminology.

“They understand what different double team blocks are called and they know 11 personnel are on the field.”

So, what were his first impressions of Moceidreke? Well, at 195 centimetres (7-foot-5) and with the capacity to add more weight to his 106-kilogram (233 pounds) frame, Bryce sees a player with a “very interesting frame and skillset”.

Combining that length with explosiveness, speed and quickness will help Moceidreke in setting the edge against the run and pressuring the quarterback while playing at defensive end, which is one of the positions he is targeting should he make it to the NFL.

Tight end, which is more of a dual role that combines being able to block effectively in the run game and pass protection with receiving chops, is Moceidreke’s other position of choice.

Wherever Moceidreke may end up playing, Bryce sees the potential in the 24-year-old to be a “versatile” weapon for coaches “that you move around to try and create some mismatches”.

“He does have speed at his size,” added Bryce.

“He can go up and get the ball, which I think is going to stand out. Hopefully he can display that in front of NFL Scouts… the catch radius range that he has.

“All those things are going to put him in a great position. And then he’s aggressive too… like heavy hands, when he strikes a pad or he strikes a sled at practice, you feel it, you hear it, there’s some real pop.

“And he genuinely enjoys that side of the sport. So that’s going to be essential for him.”

The fact Moceidreke has years of experience in elite rugby league pathways also means he already knows what it is to be a “professional athlete” — and that’s something Bryce puts particular emphasis on.

“He manages his body real well,” Bryce said.

“Great time management skills. He’s accountable. He’s a professional. So that’s going to help him.”

Plus, Moceidreke actually wants to learn. “He’s got this energy about him,” as Bryce put it.

It’s a good thing too because Moceidreke was starting from “square one” when it came to his knowledge of the NFL, and it didn’t take long for him to realise just how much he had to learn.

STARTING FROM THE ‘SQUARE ONE’… AND MOCEIDREKE’S ‘HOLY S***’ MOMENT

Moceidreke didn’t know much about the NFL before his first session on the Gold Coast.

The only game he’d watched was Super Bowl LVI between the Rams and Bengals in 2022, and he really only knew the “star players”.

As for how the game actually worked, he at least knew there was a team for offence and a team for defence. But beyond that, he was “pretty much starting from the ground”.

“I knew there was a lot,” Moceidreke said.

“But once I started to learn the game and then coming up here I was like, ‘Holy s***’… like you think you know, and then Will (Bryce) and James (Cook) add more on it and then you think you know that and then they add more on it and it just keeps adding and adding and adding and it feels like it never stops.”

Moceidreke started by learning the fundamentals, like how many quarters and timeouts there are, before moving on to the more complicated stuff — at least for someone not familiar with the game — such as getting into your stance, route-running and blocking.

“I pretty much learned from scratch and it’s a lot to take in but it’s what I’m going to do to try go all the way,” Moceidreke said.

It is not like it’s a chore either. Moceidreke has quickly grown to love the game and even the intricacies of his playbook, which he compared at first to learning a “foreign language”.

But now when you speak to Moceidreke you can hear the genuine enthusiasm in his voice and see the curiosity in his eyes as he breaks down plays, from which leg goes first on certain steps to the “little tags and cues” he looks for to dictate where he stands in the formation.

“I feel like a little kid in a candy store,” Moceidreke said.

And Moceidreke wants all of the candy, recording every session he’s in the classroom so he can listen back to pick up on anything he missed.

He is already watching 49ers tight end George Kittle’s offseason drills and trying to replicate them at his local park, while highlights of Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, Chiefs superstar Travis Kelce, Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt and Browns defensive end Myles Garrett are also on replay.

“He’s just a freak of nature with how big he is and how fast he moves,” Moceidreke said of Garrett.

Moceidreke has learned a lot, but not just about the NFL. He’s learned plenty about himself in the process too.

“I’ve learned something new, been able to test myself, find new things about myself that I didn’t know, like how mentally strong I can be, how I can take in information and retain information quickly, finding new ways of how to use my body,” Moceidreke said.

“I think finding a new love for a new game, you just want to learn everything quickly and you’re so eager to learn, so eager to do more and train whereas a kid that’s probably played the game in America since he was young, can kind of fall out of the love like I did with league as you get around this age.

“I’m definitely very eager to learn more, play more.”

And Moceidreke hasn’t even suited up yet. He hasn’t put on the helmet, pads and cleats. He doesn’t even know what it feels like to be an American football player yet.

“Once I get that on, I feel like the training field will be like playing in front of 90,000,” added Moceidreke.

“I can’t wait to just put that on and train and actually run full tilt at someone and try and run and catch a ball and see if I can run 30, 40 yards and test myself with the pads.”

But more than anything, regardless of whether he makes it to the NFL, Moceidreke wants to have no regrets.

He wants to walk off the field from every training session knowing he gave everything he had and leave the classroom knowing he asked all the questions he wanted to ask.

Because if this door hadn’t opened, Moceidreke isn’t sure where he’d be now.

“I’d probably be at home right now working and just training,” Moceidreke said.

Which doesn’t sound bad or anything. But it’s definitely not where the 24-year-old imagined himself being at this point of his life, having reached the “pinnacle” of rugby league when he made his NRL debut in 2022 only to never get back to that place again.

Although it’s not like Moceidreke’s 21-year-old self would’ve imagined him boarding a plane for Florida to chase a new dream in a sport that had barely been on his radar before last year.

But when that door did open again, Moceidreke sat back and thought: “This is definitely happening for a reason… why not try it myself?”

So, Moceidreke is doing just that and while he isn’t certain where this new path will take him, he knows it won’t go far if he doesn’t put in the work.

“I’m happy that I took this opportunity because the path that I’m on now can really set myself up and my family and my kids,” Moceidreke said.

“It’s going to take hard work, it’s not going to come soon. I’m not expecting the play straight away if I go all the way. If I make it through all the way to the end, I’ve got to grind for a year, two, three. I’m not expecting a thing.

“I’m definitely happy I took a leap of faith.”