Still got it: Lote Tuqiri scores a try against Canterbury in round 25. Credit:Getty Images Rewind time. It is midweek, early season, Redfern Oval and training is over. Tuqiri is alone in the showers, exhausted in body and spirit after being told he will again play for the Bears. "The boys came in and said, 'Are you all right?' I was crestfallen, thinking to myself, 'What am I going to do here?' " Tuqiri says. "It was maybe two, three … four weeks playing for the Bears [since round four when he was dropped].

"I was thinking, 'What do I do? There are a heap of young guys here. They'd probably rather go for a young guy than an old guy'. "I was tired and drained, physically and emotionally, with how the season was panning out. I didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. "I had just been turning up to training, trying to do my best and be in a good place for when I returned to the Bears." While Tuqiri lauds the Bears, he is candid about his disappointment so soon after joining the Rabbitohs. He signed with the club for one year after playing out a three-month deal with Irish rugby club Leinster that came after NRL side Wests Tigers did not keep him on.

No one likes being cut, certainly not a dual international such as Tuqiri whose only NRL title win was in 2000 at the Broncos under coach Wayne Bennett. While not without controversy, Tuqiri has had a distinguished football career that also includes selection in rugby league for Queensland in the 2001 and 2002 State of Origin series, Australia and Fiji. In rugby he played in the 2003 and 2007 World Cups for the Wallabies, with whom he earned 67 caps, and played in two Super Rugby finals in six years at the Waratahs from 2003 to 2009, after which he returned to the NRL with the Tigers. "I was gutted," Tuqiri says when first told by Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire after round four that he had been dropped. "I probably didn't like him for a week." But Tuqiri realised there would be no favours and that any promotion was in his hands.

"I was probably a bit down about running out for the Bears – I am not going to lie," Tuqiri says. "Part of the excitement of playing big-time footy is going out to a big crowd. But [at the Bears] I couldn't afford to lower my head or lower my standards." Tuqiri's path back to first grade by round 14 was not just hard, but experimental; Rabbitohs assistant coach Wayne Collins even suggested Tuqiri play in the forwards. That is not a first. Tuqiri recalls Bennett playing him off the bench in the forwards at the Broncos in "five or six games". "I didn't see myself as a forward," he says. "They earn their money … I have tried to stay away from that ever since."

Tuqiri didn't totally allay that interest. Playing for the Wallabies in their 2003 World Cup pool game against Romania, coach Eddie Jones sent him on from the bench to play on the flank in the last 10 minutes. From a pick and drive two metres out, Tuqiri even scored his first try in Test rugby. "I had to pack in the scrum," Tuqiri recalls, laughing. "I didn't know what I was doing. I just said, 'What do I do?' They said, 'Bind behind his arse. Make sure you push and he doesn't come backwards'. "[The try] came off the scrum, two to three phases in. We were nearly over the line. I went to clean out. The ball presented itself. I picked it up, drove over and scored."

After the experience, Tuqiri dismissed further talk of him exploring life as a forward. But it returned with Collins' proposal that he trial up front – one that met a similar fate after Tuqiri at least tried. "I had a chat with 'Madge' [Maguire] and said, 'Knock that on the head'. He wanted to give me another angle to get back into the team," Tuqiri says. Since winning his place back in the Rabbitohs' top side, Tuqiri has impressed. And as he is one game away from a grand final, he is indebted to the Rabbitohs, saying they "have given me a new lease of life". Tuqiri knows he is not as fast as he was – "I have tried to be honest to myself," he says – but what he lacks in speed, he makes up for in experience.

"I think that is a part of why they brought me on at the Rabbitohs," Tuqiri says. "Part of that job is to instil confidence within the younger players of their own ability and what they can do around the organisation, how they handle this time of the year and the pressures of footy on and off the field." Tuqiri knows the end of his career is nearing, and while he is still undecided on his future, he recognises that "you've got to be smart about it too – you don't want to leave it too long. They were some of the thoughts I had [earlier in year] – had I gone too far, too long?" Loading But retirement or not is not a decision for today.

"I just want to live the moment, mate," Tuqiri says.