{"id":156944,"date":"2021-11-08T03:30:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T04:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=156944"},"modified":"2021-11-08T05:14:42","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T05:14:42","slug":"leilua-claims-speaking-up-cost-him-tigers-gig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=156944","title":{"rendered":"Leilua claims 'speaking up' cost him Tigers gig"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exiled Tiger Joey Leilua<\/a> says his falling out with the club was in part due to his willingness to "speak up when something is wrong".<\/p>\n

Leilua, a two-time Dally M Centre of the Year, fell out of favour with Tigers coach Michael Maguire before his contract ran out at the end of the 2021 season.<\/a><\/p>\n

After playing 14 games with the club last year, he played just seven games this year after losing his spot in the side.<\/p>\n

The out of contract 29-year-old is currently preparing for a boxing bout with former NRL star Chris Heighington<\/a>, but he spoke today about his exit from Maguire's side.<\/p>\n

Leilua claims it all fell apart for him the moment he spoke up when things went wrong for the Tigers, who fell short again of finals football with a 13th-place finish.<\/p>\n

\"Joey<\/p>\n

"I am a person where I've come to clubs and you speak up when something is wrong \u2013 and there were plenty of things going wrong at that club," he told Fox Sports.<\/p>\n

"I spoke up and it kind of like, got me in trouble."<\/p>\n

Leilua, who played 91 games for the Raiders, said he felt more encouraged to speak up while under coach Ricky Stuart.<\/p>\n

"When I played in Canberra, we all spoke up, didn't matter if you played two games, one game, zero games; if you trained with us in pre-season you had a say in the team\u2026 But we didn't have that at the Wests Tigers," he added.<\/p>\n

"Nobody really spoke up and everyone was kind of hesitant to lose their position in the team, where I was different, I came from a club where everyone spoke up and I always spoke up which unfortunately got me to where I am now.<\/p>\n

"Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut a bit."<\/p>\n

\"Barnstorming<\/p>\n

Leilua said the moment he got to the Tigers at the start of 2020, everything felt "totally different" to how it was in Canberra, a club that made the grand final in 2019.<\/p>\n

"(Stuart) was like the person where if you see something, you talk about it, everyone spoke up so that's where I thought I was at with the club, you speak up and that's how you got the best out of each other," Leilua said.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Daniel Ricciardo triggers first lap crash at Mexico City Grand Prix<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Sheens to hold urgent talks with unsettled Wests Tigers half<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

"When I got to the Wests Tigers it was totally different, it was everything he (Maguire) wanted and I am the person who will do it your way, and did it, then it wasn't working so I had to speak up and that's a part of who I am, I won't let something go on for so long if it's not working."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exiled Tiger Joey Leilua says his falling out with the club was in part due to his willingness to "speak up when something is wrong". […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156946,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156944\/revisions\/156946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}