Former Tigers centre Joey Leilua is set to have seen his last day in the NRL, with a recently explicit rant all but closing a door on any potential comeback to the Australian top flight.
Leilua signed with second-tier English club the Featherstone Rovers in November after being cut by the Wests Tigers, a departure that was highly documented.
The 30-year-old quickly turned his attention to the boxing ring, having scheduled a fight against Chris Heighington last month before eyeing his venture to the Northern Hemisphere to join the Rovers.
Leilua claimed victory over Heighington and told his doubters to โgo f--- themselvesโ shortly after, sparking further concern from NRL personnel.
One league chief executive believes Leilua's "loose cannon" antics have cost him any chance of rejuvenating his NRL career.
โHe did himself no favours,โ the CEO told News Corp.
โHe is the type of player that has the talent to make it back from the UK but we will not see him in the NRL after that. He is a loose cannon.โ
Leilua had already burnt his last bridge with the Tigers after firing a final shot at the club following his axing.
โI am a person where Iโve come to clubs and you speak up when something is wrong โ and there were plenty of things going wrong at that club,โ Leilua told Fox Sports.
โI spoke up and it kind of like, got me in trouble.
โWhen I played in Canberra, we all spoke up, didnโt matter if you played two games, one game, zero games if you trained with us in pre-season you had a say in the teamโฆbut we didnโt have that at the Wests Tigers.
โNobody really spoke up and everyone was kind of hesitant to lose their position in the team, where I was different, I came from a club where everyone spoke up and I always spoke up which unfortunately got me to where I am now."
The Samoan international played 225 games in the NRL, spanning his 11-year stint in the league with the Roosters, Raiders, Knights and Tigers.
