Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n‘One of the most incredible comebacks’ | 05:20<\/p>\n
Despite only being at the Dolphins for a short time, Saifiti revealed how hard it was to tell his teammates about his decision. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty emotional, I love those boys,\u201d Saifiti said as his voice cracked up. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve only been here 18 months and only got to play eight games with them, but it\u2019s the best decision I\u2019ve ever made coming up here,\u201d Saifiti said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve made friendships for life and I\u2019ll keep in touch with these boys forever, so I think seeing the roster we\u2019ve got, how good I know this team can be and I think I could still add something to it at my best. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s the thing that hurts the most, good boys but it\u2019s good for the team too, they\u2019re going in the right direction.\u201d <\/p>\n
After achieving everything in the game apart from an elusive premiership, Saifiti revealed his proudest moment was playing with twin brother Jacob at the Knights for so many years. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s probably my proudest achievement,\u201d Saifiti said.<\/p>\n
‘Ask Jarome, it’s his shout’ Foxx on PNG | 00:59<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously we were born on the same day and playing in the backyard and smashing each other then and getting a debut in the same game together and then playing and that\u2019s one of those things where I sort of took it for granted. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where when you\u2019re doing it at the time you don\u2019t realise it and once you sit down and look back at it now, if you had told me as a 10-year-old kid I\u2019d have gone and played 10 years in a row, that\u2019s pretty special.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jacob Saifiti is in career best form for the Knights, who have climbed up the ladder this season and his brother was on hand to watch him beat Souths in Round 9. <\/p>\n
\u201cI went to the game yesterday and got to see him play in Newcastle, so it was good to see all the boys and I\u2019m still super close with all those boys down there,\u201d Saifiti said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI played for 10 years down there and most of those boys already knew as well, so it wasn\u2019t really a secret, but it was just good to see everyone and see them play good footy. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think if it keeps going the way it\u2019s going I think he will be back in Origin contention as well, so I love watching him play.\u201d <\/p>\n
Panthers hold off brave Sea Eagles | 02:56<\/p>\n
It was a cruel twist of fate that Saifiti\u2019s Knights career was during a tough run for the club, but he has no regrets about living his rugby league dreams. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a weird one, me and Jacob debuted Round 1 together as 19-year-old kids and that whole year we played we only won one game,\u201d Saifiti said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo that whole year sounds weird, but I was still enjoying my footy playing against all my idols, playing with my idols and the wins and losses really did matter back then. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt proves probably how bad the club was at the time but it was just tough. The loyal Newcastle fans we were getting 17,000 fans and we were getting beat by 60 every week. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut they are memories I look back on fondly, my kids were born there, I met my partner there, I grew up down the road so it\u2019s good.\u201d <\/p>\n
Cleary furious over obstruction call | 05:56<\/p>\n
Despite leaving the playing field, Saifiti will stay with the Dolphins for the duration of his contract in an off-field role and flagged his desire to get into coaching in the future. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to sit down with Terry Reader and go through it, I\u2019m contracted until next year and the way the agreement is with RLPA, I still get fully paid out, but it\u2019s by the club,\u201d Saifiti said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019ll be around the club in either a mentoring sense or work with all the younger boys and coaching, I definitely want to get into that after footy, so I\u2019ll just sit down with Terry and nut out a plan and go from there.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite having the club\u2019s blessing to play on if he wanted to, Saifiti has no regrets over his decision to retire, apart from not getting to give more to the club as a player. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel bad for the Dolphins,\u201d Saifiti said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first eight games at the club I felt like I was back playing my good footy again, but that\u2019s all I got out was the eight games, so it would have been selfish for me to take up all that salary cap and knowing full well that I\u2019m probably not going to come back.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Saifiti has described the decision to medically retire from rugby league due to a shoulder injury as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,2652,211419,211425,39829,33224,93561,211420,56484,211418,211427,16851,54173,94267,20317,32719,8061,211423,62765,2648,111,2653,75636,139,69,2659,62726,211422,211426,45603,211421,81271,211417,213,138389,211424,144748],"class_list":["post-410915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-club-move","tag-coach-spoke","tag-craig-bellamy","tag-dolphins","tag-emotional-tribute","tag-father-figure","tag-final-call","tag-football-ambitions","tag-health-battle","tag-ivan-cleary","tag-jacob","tag-josh-addo-carr","tag-long-term-health","tag-manly-sea-eagles","tag-mark-st-john","tag-medical-retirement","tag-melanesia","tag-new-south-wales","tag-new-zealand","tag-newcastle","tag-newcastle-knights","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oceania","tag-papua-new-guinea","tag-pretty-special","tag-proudest-moment","tag-rugby-league","tag-rugby-league-dreams","tag-shoulder-injury","tag-shoulder-specialists","tag-sports","tag-three-year-deal","tag-twin-brother","tag-young-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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