Premiership-winner Reni Maitua has revealed the lengths he went to to get back on the football field after being suspended by Cronulla for taking a banned substance.

The utility forward and former Australian represented revealed he spent five weeks in a Thai jungle in preparation for a return to the NRL.

“There was some of my closest friends who doubted me and thought I’d never make it back on the field,” Maitua said on the Talking with TK podcast.

“That was probably my driving motivation to prove them wrong. I was in my late 20’s when I got suspended. I spent an eleven month period where I was working as a lifeguard and I wasn’t overly excited about coming back to the game.

“I was sitting on the internet one day and I saw this Tiger Muay Thai camp in Thailand and I thought I’ll give this a crack. I went over, sat in a jungle for five weeks, trained three times a day, six days a week.

“[The] fittest I’ve ever been so I came back, rang my manager and said “find me a club””.