South Sydney had tripped up in the preliminary final - again - and while the loss to Manly hurt many people it cut their second-rower deeper than most.

He waves a finger to his left, pointing to the other side of the road.

"I went to the Flight Centre over there, booked a flight and I left the next day," he tells me. "I was cut up about that game, man. It hurt me pretty bad, after the year I went through. I put all my energy into it, and to lose that preliminary final against Manly left me distraught. I thought, 'I'm out of here'."

Only those close to Te'o truly understand what last year cost him after Brisbane woman Katie Lewis accused him of bashing her in the home of former Broncos teammate Corey Norman.

The cost was tens of thousands of dollars burnt in legal fees and defamation action. Sponsorships and media deals. His reputation. His love of rugby league. His happiness.

And, ultimately, his NRL career.

Te'o leaves next Saturday to take up a two-year deal with Dublin-based rugby powerhouse Leinster. At the age of 27, in career-best form, he is switching codes at the precise time when he is flourishing.

As it stands, Te'o is living out his final days in Sydney with teammate Sam Burgess in an apartment at Rushcutters Bay, with two bags of clothes and nothing more.

"He's basically been living like a backpacker for the past six months," Burgess laughs.

Te'o is leaving despite the inescapable fact that he was never arrested or charged by Queensland police, and completely cleared by the NRL integrity unit.

That's why this Sunday's grand final against the Bulldogs means so much to him.

It's why the loss to the Sea Eagles last year cut so deep. After a few beers in the rooms at ANZ Stadium, the emotion came out.

"And then I left," he tells me. "I left for two and half weeks - and went overseas."

Te'o had trawled Google and YouTube, stumbling on the Athletes' Performance centre in Phoenix,where pro athletes check in to take their bodies to another level.

Says Te'o: "I thought, 'Where can I go to get better? Who are the best athletes similar to me? NFL players. Where are they training and what are they doing?' I found this place that trains [NFL] Combine guys and free agents. I just needed to get an edge. So I booked a flight, went there, and I trained. I just trained.

"I did weights. I did core [strength]. A lot of movement, speed, agility, and I met a lot of cool people. I met NBA veterans. [Former New York Knicks point guard] Mike Bibby was there. Major League Baseball players. The US track team. Free agents in the NFL who would train early in the week and then try out for the Miami Dolphins, the Jets, and then I would see them back the next week. If I didn't see them, I knew a team had them picked up."

The other athletes asked Te'o where he came from.

"I play rugby league," he told them.

Rugby?

"No-one knew what rugby league was," he explains. "They knew the All Blacks. But they had no idea what rugby league was. I was just another guy over there, training. I paid for it out of my own money. It cost me a bit, but it was worth it. I just wanted to get better. Because we'd failed. I had to do something. Can't just wait around for the off-season. I took it in my own hands to invest in myself."

If you're looking for an explanation why Te'o can miss a month of football because of suspension, then come off the bench against the Roosters in the preliminary final last Friday, pick up James Maloney and dump him to the ground like he's a rag doll, then storm over for the try that enabled his side to roar back into the contest and ultimately win, this is one of them.

Maybe the other is that Te'o is coming to the end of two years of personal turmoil because of past events.

In late May last year, Lewis returned to the home of Norman along with Te'o and Darius Boyd following a night out in Brisbane.

Weeks later, she sensationally claimed on Channel Nine that Te'o repeatedly punched her, and continued to do so after Boyd had allegedly said "Stop!"

"I tuned in like everyone else," says Te'o. "And I couldn't believe it."

That's as far as Te'o will go with his version of events from that night.

Critics will simplistically say that implies guilt. In reality, it's because he doesn't want to create hysterical headlines in a week when the focus should be about Souths' march to a grand final. He has remained silent on the issue earlier because of ongoing defamation action over her claims.

What Te'o will tell you is how deeply hurt he has been by the episode.

"I co-operated," he says. "I went down all the avenues that I had to. I did everything they asked of me. I was interrogated for six hours by private investigators, from the police and the integrity unit. There is no way you can lie to those guys, the way the interview works. The evidence was there to back me up. I was never worried about that. I was never worried that I wasn't going to be cleared, because I knew. I knew there would be a lot of mud that stuck, because people believe what they read."

To that end, he says the events of last year changed him.

"It changed what I thought about the media. When I read things, I don't always believe it. When I see the news, I always think there's another side, because I've experienced it. I know that it's all about pumping things up.

"It changed the way I feel about the game, also. I understand now there will be people who get trodden on. That's just how it is. I felt different about this game after that. And the way I felt is probably why I explored other options. After what happened last year, I struggled with it."

Despite being cleared by the police and the NRL, rival fans continue to mock him.

"I just don't think it's going to go away. No matter what. No matter about the fact I was cleared. I've got a clean criminal record. People are just going to use it against me, but that's the way it is and the way that people are. If they want a reaction out of me, that's the thing they will go for. I hear it. I hear it at stadiums. It's not nice, but I can't change that.

"My image was ruined. I took a hit personally, but financially, too. Legal fees, it's cost me tens of thousands of dollars. I'm still trying to work through that stuff. I'm looking at close to - I don't know what it could be. It could be close to $50,000."

Coming from a big family in New Zealand, Te'o learnt from a young age to respect money because "we didn't have much of it". He has pursued defamation action against several media outlets, but has only recently dropped off because the legal bills became too steep.

He says: "Nobody has come forward to help me out. Channel Nine hasn't stepped forward and said, 'Maybe we got this wrong. Maybe we didn't do enough research, maybe we didn't get the facts first'. I had some media deals that fell over, car deals that never eventuated. It added up, just under a hundred [thousand dollars]. That's what it's cost me.

"I felt, 'I am ruined here. Why am I staying here? I play Friday nights, for Channel Nine. I play for them, for their ratings. There's nothing here for me anymore. And I'm not happy'. It was a struggle to be happy and try to perform, so I thought to myself, 'I love this game but I'm not happy anymore. Do I need to go away? Yeah, maybe I do. I needed to go somewhere else'."

#         #         #

The events of last year changed him, but the seeds about changing codes were first planted during his time living with Israel Folau, who has played three of them.

Earlier this year, he sat down with Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire and frankly explained his intentions.

"I'm going to try something else," he said. "I think it's time."

Says Te'o now: "He knew what I went through. So did the boys. The club was awesome through the whole thing. I'm not saying I won't come back to rugby league. It just didn't feel right to stay."

The idea of playing rugby union excites him, but he has no pre-conceived ideas or expectations about playing in next year's World Cup, unlike Burgess.

"I think getting out of Sydney is more important for him," says Burgess, who says he barely discussed the idea of a code switch with Te'o.

Te'o has seen from close range what is driving his flatmate this season.

"There's been so much change in him, the sacrifices he made," he says. "There's been a lot of pressure on Sam to deliver something here. And I think he really embraced that. He made a lot of sacrifices to be here this week."

What does excite Te'o about the next chapter is the opportunity to see Europe, where he's never been before, exploring the ancient streets of cities like Paris and Rome.

"I just want to go away and enjoy it. If I get the itch and I want to come back, if anyone wants me, I will come back."

In the meantime, there's a final chapter for Te'o to write here.

With his future settled, he now ranks with Burgess and Bulldogs prop James Graham as the most destructive forward in the game.

I tell him he's an animal on the field. He laughs. I tell him I'm not joking.

"I've done a lot of work, working on my mind," he explains. "Playing free. I've worked with a lot of good people in the last eight months about freeing myself. Trying to live for little moments. It's all working for me. I've been working with a sports guy. He's not a psychologist but someone I like to bounce ideas off. He's really opened up my mind about things."

When Te'o was suspended for four matches for his chicken wing tackle on Broncos forward Sam Thaiday, he feared he'd played his last NRL match.

Instead of wallowing around Redfern Oval, he again took off.

"I can't stay here for four weeks and just get flogged every day," he told Maguire. "Let me freshen up and go somewhere."

Te'o didn't go to Phoenix but the Gold Coast, training at the Australian Institute of Sport facility alongside elite swimmers, kayakers and BMX riders.

Then he headed 40 minutes south to Kingscliff to the Hurley High Performance Centre, where he trained alongside world tour surfer Sally Fitzgibbons.

"I couldn't believe how hard she trains and pushes herself," he says. "We did an exercise where you take a breath, swim 25m underwater, come up, and then go back. I did it once. She did it eight or nine times and passed out. That's how hard she pushed herself."

Te'o leaves for Dublin next Saturday. Burgess departs three days later.

In the meantime, there's the not-so-minor matter of a grand final to play, and both players will need to play the games of their lives if Souths are to win it.

"I'm just enjoying this week, because this is it," Te'o says. "I am happy now. Because I can see the end."