Warriors game plan in 2002 of just give it to
Lauitiiti /Jones was a rather effective one. What happened? falling out with the coach? lazy?
Lauiti'iti picked up some sort of weird injury in the 2002/03 off season- I believe a bone cyst or something like that? He missed most of the 2003 season which was a massive shame because he was in his absolute prime.
Then he departed in 2004 in equally weird circumstances. There was nothing particularly bad about his form but the Warriors had started the season poorly and questions were being asked. Apparently the story goes that Daniel Anderson and Mick Watson (I think it was them at the time?) asked Ali whether rugby league was his number 1 priority in life. He told them it was third behind family and religion. He was then pretty much summarily sacked on the spot because in the club's opinion he had "made it clear the Warriors weren't a priority to him".
The irony is that this bloke who apparently didn't care about football played 294 games in Super League and didn't retire until he was 37 years old.
He's a cult hero at Leeds but I still feel he never amounted to what he should have. He was able to be a superstar over there by sort of cruising through games and ended up as an impact bench player when really he should have been the best forward in Super League. He also played his last test for the Kiwis a decade before his retirement, he should have been our best forward of the 2000s.
