When Featherstone Rovers announced the signing of Joey Leilua ahead of 2022 it was a major statement.
In fact, the West Yorkshire club has made statement after statement after statement signing since the arrival of Leilua but unfortunately those statements didn’t translate to success like many expected they would do.
Leilua is one of 17 players who left the club at the end of the 2023 season having missed out on promotion again. Since then, two more players have left the club in the shape of Chris Hankinson who has joined Salford Red Devils and Ellis Longstaff.
Leilua has confirmed that he is “done” with the professional sport as well instead focusing on boxing.
“It’s just for 15 games, that’s all. It’s a part-time job. I’m done with professional football,” Leilua said.
“The $700,000 days were a long time ago. I’ve done enough for my family, we have a nice house, we are living comfortably so it’s all good.
“This is a good job, you know. I still need to make an income. At least this way I get to play football on the weekend and still get to do boxing with Huss (trainer Hassan El-Achrafi) during the year so it’s a win-win situation for me,” Leilua added.
“I started boxing two years ago about September-October and had my first fight in December”, Leilua said.
“I was sick around that time, I had Covid. I was in the hospital for 21 days and was in the ICU for three. I almost died but I had two weeks to get back in shape to fight. I did it to prove people wrong, to prove that I could still do it.
“I lost passion in football, I just wanted to do something new, and boxing gave me that,” Leilua said.
“Huss made me feel like footy isn’t everything, so he made me fall back in love with footy when I got back to training and got fit again.
“I enjoyed it. I enjoy getting hit in the face, and punching people in the face, so it was a win-win situation.”
“On behalf of the Dapto Rugby League Football Club, we would like to welcome Joseph ‘BJ’ Leilua to the club for the upcoming 2024 competition,” the Canaries said on Instagram.
“BJ will be bringing a wealth of knowledge to the club over 200 NRL games and 15 internationals for Samoa.”
