Daine Laurie (born 20 July 1999) is a professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who plays as a for the

Wests Tigers The Wests Tigers are an Australian professional Rugby league, rugby league football team, based in the Inner West and South West Sydney. They have competed in the National Rugby League since being formed at the end of the 1999 NRL season as a j ...

in the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

(NRL). He previously played for the

Penrith Panthers The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the western Sydney suburb of Penrith that competes in the NRL. The team is based west of the centre of Sydney, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Penrit ...

in the NRL.

Background

Laurie was born in Sydney, but was raised in

Iluka, New South Wales Iluka is a small village at the mouth of the Clarence River in north-eastern New South Wales, Australia. It is situated directly across the river from the resort town of Yamba. At the 2016 census, Iluka had a population of 1,718 people. The t ...

where his family is from. He is of

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

descent, from the Bundjalung and Yaegl people, and is a relative of Cody Walker. Laurie is the nephew of his namesake Daine Laurie. Laurie played his junior rugby league for the Lower Clarence Magpies and

Grafton Ghosts The Grafton Ghosts are an Australian rugby league football team based in Grafton, New South Wales. The club was founded in 1963 as a joint venture of the Grafton All Blacks and Grafton United teams. Notable players * Danny Wicks (2006-16 St Ge ...

before joining the Penrith Panthers in 2017.

Playing career

Early years

In 2017, Laurie joined Penrith and played with their S. G. Ball Cup squad. In 2018, he was named Penrith's

Jersey Flegg Cup The Jersey Flegg Cup is a junior rugby league competition played in New South Wales, contested among teams made up of players aged 21 or under. The competition is administered by the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL), and is named for Easte ...

player of the year.

2020

In August, Laurie made his first grade debut in round 13 of the 2020 NRL season for Penrith against the

Canberra Raiders The Canberra Raiders are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the national capital city of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. They have competed in Australasia's elite rugby league competition, the National Rugby ...

2021

Laurie signed with the

until the end of the 2023 season. However, it was announced on 2 August that he would miss the rest of the 2021 NRL season after suffering a broken

fibula The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. Its upper extremity i ...

in the Wests Tigers round 20 loss against the

New Zealand Warriors The New Zealand Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as ...

. Otherwise, Laurie had a breakout rookie season, which saw him nominated for the 2021 RLPA Players' Champion award. On 6 October, a photo of Penrith-born Laurie wearing a jersey of his former club (Penrith) and celebrating that club's 2021 NRL Grand Final victory over South Sydney was shared to the media, despite him being contracted to the

. Laurie later apologised over the incident saying "Silly by me, silly mistake, but I am really sorry for it".

2022

Laurie played a total of 19 matches for the Wests Tigers in the 2022 NRL season. In March, a Newcastle fan reportedly spotted Laurie and a Wests Tigers team-mate playing poker machines in a Newcastle hotel at 10pm on the eve of an unsuccessful Tigers match against

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

. The drama was described as "blown out of proportion". No NRL or club disciplinary action was taken as no integrity rules were breached. On 25 September, Laurie scored a try for the 2022 Australian Men's Prime Minister's XIII in their 64-14 victory over the Papuan New Guinea Prime Minister's XIII at

Suncorp Stadium Lang Park, also known as Brisbane Football Stadium, by the sponsored name Suncorp Stadium, and nicknamed: 'The Cauldron', is a multi-purpose stadium in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, located in the suburb of Milton. The current facility co ...

References

External links

Wests Tigers profilePenrith Panthers profile
1999 births Living people Australian rugby league players Indigenous Australian rugby league players Rugby league fullbacks Rugby league players from Penrith, New South Wales Penrith Panthers players Wests Tigers players {{Australia-rugbyleague-bio-1990s-stub