Joseph Leilua reportedly sheds 10kg after ‘disgusting’ 2020 season

Wests Tigers star Joseph Leilua has reportedly dropped more than 10kg after a “disgusting” year which included a dietary debacle.

Star centre Joseph Leilua has reportedly dropped 10kg after a “disgusting” debut season with Wests Tigers.

The destructive ball-runner on Tuesday said he let the club down after making a high-profile move from Canberra in a season where the Tigers won just seven games in coach Michael Maguire’s second year in charge.

Leilua has dramatically opened up in an interview with foxsports.com.au about the ugly habits which saw his form on the field and his physique off the field fall apart.

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He says his dietary breakdown was the result of isolation away from his family, including his mum, his wife and children, as the NRL was forced into COVID bubbles.

“It was more Oporto, man. I was eating Oporto every day for lunch and dinner,” he said.

Tigers Joseph Leilua. Picture: Brett Costello

“Chicken fillet Bondi. It was bad, I wasn’t an athlete last year, I can tell you that much.

“I was weighing too heavy last year. This year is different, I stuck to my diet, controlled my weight and now I’m down to my playing weight.”

The report details how Leilua has shed 10kg since the start of the NRL pre-season.

One week out from the NRL season opener, Leilua’s comments will be welcome news to Tigers fans. He is reportedly fully recovered from a foot injury that gave him headaches last year and is full of enthusiasm after his wife and children were able to return to living with him in Sydney.

It is a very different player to the one Tigers fans saw in 2020.

“Absolutely disgusting,” he said of his 2020 campaign.

“It was poor from me. I never want to see myself like that again. I was poor in my performances... they signed me to make the club better.

“I let the club down and the fans. My job this year is doing my best as I can to repay them.”

UNWANTED BRONCO LIFTS LID ON PLAYER RIFT

Joe Ofahengaue has a clean slate at the Tigers.

Discarded Broncos star Joe Ofahengaue has bluntly declared Brisbane players stopped believing in former coach Anthony Seibold last year.

The Broncos’ staggering fall from grace under Seibold in 2020 reportedly led to a broken dressing room before coach Kevin walters stepped in.

Ofahengaue, a former Queensland State of Origin star, was moved on from the club at the end of the season as part of the high-profile game of musical chairs following star prop Addin Fonua-Blake’s prickly move to the Warriors from Manly.

It allowed Manly to poach Josh Aloiai from the Tigers, after the club's came to a financial settlement, before the Tigers pounced on Ofahengaue, who was released from the final two years from his Broncos contract.

The star forward is not bitter at the Broncos, but admits the club was a mess in 2020.

“When you’re losing, your players lose belief in your coach, it’s hard to get the team to click because everyone’s minds are in different places,” he told foxsports.com.au.

“You know, some boys maybe believed in the coach. Some boys didn’t, that’s what the Broncos were last year.”

He admits he lost faith in Seibold at times.

“I’m not going to badmouth Seibs. I think he was a great guy,” he said.

“I think his coaching strategies were nowhere near what we needed last year.

“Us players as well, we were at fault as well, because we weren’t honest [with Seibold] sometimes. He’d say we need to do this? And as players we just agreed.

“So we played a big part in that as well. It wasn’t just a coach like, I’m not going to fault Seibs. It was on all of us as a club.

“You know, we lost belief in our processes, belief in each other our beliefs, and our teammates and belief in our coach.

“Sometimes we were just too structured and sometimes some players would get the s***s and say we don’t want to run that play, or they just didn’t get a match style of footy,” he says. “But that’s all in the past.

“I wish Seibs all the best. And I was pretty sad when he was telling us he got fired, it’s a man losing his job.”