NRL finals series: Quiet achiever Ricky Leutele hoping to end 10-year stint with Sharks on high note

RICKY Leutele has been a Shark since 2008. Wade Graham calls him the ‘security blanket’. But as the softly-spoken centre doesn’t chase the limelight his story is unknown to most fans.

Ricky Leutele has been an unsung hero for the Sharks this season.

MICHAEL Ennis is standing behind the Canberra try line.

The Raiders, in the 2016 qualifying final, have just scored a first-half try in the nation’s capital and Jarrod Croker is about to sink a conversion for a dreamy 12-0 lead.

The message from the coaches box — ‘you’re now our captain’ — has just been passed onto the former Cronulla hooker.

Skipper Paul Gallen is back in Sydney with a back injury and co-captain Wade Graham has been knocked out of the contest.

Ricky Leutele has been an unsung hero for the Sharks this season. Picture: Phil Hillyard.

“Who’s comin’ with me ... who’s comin’ with me,’’ Ennis is screaming, inside the Cronulla huddle.

The first to react is prop-forward Matt Prior. Then, Andrew Fifita.

“And the next player to step forward, was Ricky Leutele, who had said five words all season,’’ Ennis said.

“In that quiet little voice, he said: ‘I’m comin with ya too.’

“And at that moment, I knew we would be able to do something special that night.’’

Of all the headlines you’ll potentially read about Cronulla over the next week or more, the odds are short that this could be the only one about the media-shy Sharks centre, Leutele.

Quite possibly, it could be the only in-depth interview the softly-spoken Leutele has ever given, that is, despite being Cronulla’s longest-serving player, behind Paul Gallen.

Ricky Leutele is moving on after 10 years at the Sharks.

And that’s exactly how the 28-year-old, who hides in the dressing room when the press arrive at Shark Park, likes it.

“I get more nervous talking to media, than I do playing,’’ Leutele said.

Which is a shame, because when Leutele runs out in Saturday night’s qualifying final against the Sydney Roosters at Allianz Stadium, the Samoan international’s story is one that should’ve been told long ago.

The man who left-edge Wade Graham calls his security blanket, has had reason to share his story many times before.

Leutele’s ‘moment’ came in 2014.

When in just his 20th NRL match, on a Saturday night in April, he became an instant YouTube highlight.

Stepping, palming and thundering past a grasping Sonny Bill Williams, Leutele scored a solo-try which live in the call, Fox Sports commentator Ben Ikin had left the Roosters champion, “shattered.’’

Ricky Leutele dives over for the Sharks in their round 17 game against the Roosters.

Back then, we could’ve learned that before he embarrassed one of rugby league’s greatest-ever defenders, Leutele was still learning how to walk first and then run again, after suffering a foot injury more common in car accident’s or falls from two-story buildings.

Leutele arrived at Cronulla as a teenager after being signed from his junior club in Brisbane, Souths Logan, in 2008.

Yet remarkably, he would spend the next six seasons — playing just 13 NRL matches between 2008 and 2013 — fighting for recognition behind the likes of Ben Pomeroy, Colin Best, Jonathan Wright and Dean Collis.

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“I wanted to have a big pre season ahead of 2013 and it paid off because I got to start at centre in round one against the Titans,’’ Leutele said.

“Then three weeks later, I got injured and my season was done. The doctors told me my season was over...I was shattered.

“I broke down in tears, right there and then.

“I was 22 and I was finally starting at centre and then suddenly, I got hit with a serious injury and I had to learn how to put one foot in front of the other.

Ricky Leutele with his family.

“I thought; ‘No, this will be too hard to come back from’.

“I had to learn how to turn on all these different muscles in my foot, calf and quads.

“It was so hard. I had a screw in my foot, there was no weight-bearing for six weeks, it was torture.

“I remember when I got the boot off, my first running session, I felt shocking.

“But the physio’s were so persistent with me and slowly it paid off.

“I came in late to the 2014 pre-season because I was still learning how to run again.

“But at the start of 2014, Beau Ryan went down with an injury in the lead-up to our round one Titans game.

“I got the nod that week and it just grew from there.’’

Ricky Leutele will have a vital part to play in the Sharks’ finals run.

Leutele with his power-running and savage defence has been a mainstay in the Sharks backline, all the while, failing to shadow any of the spotlight which has been consumed in the past by the likes of Jack Bird, Ben Barba and Valentine Holmes.

“Coaches and team-mates love players who know that their greatest effort might in the final minute of a match, that’s why we love Ricky,’’ Sharks coach Shane Flanagan said.

Sharks fans aren’t oblivious to what the father of three means to the club either, dubbing him Ricky ‘The Tackle” Leutele, after he made the final tackle in Cronulla’s maiden premiership win in 2016.

But perhaps, the greatest recognition comes from his teammates.

Like the lift Ennis received from behind the tryline in Canberra, left-edge partner Graham describes Leutele as “selfless despite the lack of recognition he receives.’’

“Of the 125 games that Ricky has played, I’ve been next to him in 105 of them,’’ Graham said.

“He gives me so much comfort on that left side. I know we’re safe out there when Rick is there.

“He’s quiet, but all he needs to do is to say a couple of words and I know exactly what he wants.’’

And what Leutele wants, is another premiership ring before he departs the club next year, bound for the Toronto Wolfpack.

“We’ve got the team and the talent to do it again. We’ve just got to perform on game day,’’ Leutele said.

“I often look back on where I’ve come from and what I’ve achieved.

“But all I want is a second premiership before I go overseas. If I get that, I’ll be the happiest man on the earth.’’

Originally published as NRL finals series: Quiet achiever Ricky Leutele hoping to end 10-year stint with Sharks on high note