Laurie William Daley, also known by the nicknames of "Lozza" and "Loz", is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and a former player who played as a centre and five-eighth in the late 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. He represented Australia on 26 occasions and has since been named as one of the nation's finest of the 20th century. Daley played for the Canberra Raiders during their most successful period in the 1990s and experienced a successful Origin career.

Daley was born in Junee, New South Wales, Australia to a white father from the small village of Nangus, New South Wales and an Aboriginal mother of the former Aboriginal Mission Wantabadgery, New South Wales. Daley is the third youngest of eight children. He is the only boy amongst seven sisters. He began playing Australian rules football at school age before switching to rugby league where he played with the Junee Diesels developing a passion for the sport. At just the age of 15 he was promoted to first grade.

Daley was playing representative rugby league at age 18 in 1988 when he was selected to represent NSW Country in the annual City vs Country Origin game. He was the second highest try-scorer for the Csnberra Raiders in the 1989 NSWRL season with sixteen tries, only one less than teammate Gary Belcher. He tasted premiership success with the Raiders famous 1989 win in an extra-time game which saw Canberra defeat the Balmain Tigers 19–14, and in the ensuing celebrations the Winfield Cup was smashed, not by Daley dropping it as was reported by the press, but when it fell from the rear tray of Ford T bucket hot rod both were riding in when the hot rod hit a bump in the road. Daley played his first games for New South Wales in the 1989 State of Origin series.

Part way through the 1990 NSWRL Premiership season at age 20 Daley made his first appearance for Australia at five-eighth against France in the NSW country town of Parkes, scoring a try on debut. He would then play against New Zealand a month later in Wellington. At the end of the 1990 season where the Raiders won their second consecutive Grand Final, Daley won the Raiders' player of the year award and was then selected for the 1990 Kangaroo Tour.

During the 1990 season, Canberra coach Tim Sheens shifted Daley from centre to five-eighth at the Raiders and popular theory was that he was being groomed to eventually take over the Test five-eighth role from Wally Lewis who was coming to the end of his career. Daley helped the Raiders to back-to-back premierships when they defeated Penrith 18–14 in the Grand Final at the Sydney Football Stadium. 

Canberra then limped into the Finals in defence of their crown, but suddenly found form and won high scoring games over Manly-Warringah and North Sydney to again face Penrith in the Grand Final. However, with Ricky Stuart taking a groin injury into the game and Daley doing the same with a dodgy hamstring, the Raiders were eventually no match for the Royce Simmons and Greg Alexander inspired Panthers who won the day 19–12.

During the 1992 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand, he helped Australia retain The Ashes. Affected severely by a knee injury in 1992, which saw him unable to fulfill his contract at Wakefield Trinity, and miss Australia's World Cup final win over Great Britain at Wembley following the 1992 NSWRL season.1992 also saw Daley take over the captaincy of the NSW Origin team, and after being knocked out during the first game in Sydney, Daley recovered to lead the Blues to a 2–1 series win over Queensland now captained by Canberra teammate and Australian team captain Mal Meninga.

Daley recovered from injury to captain Australia in the absence of suspended captain Meninga in the first Test against New Zealand in 1993, kicking the match-saving field goal and saving Australia from an embarrassing 14–13 loss (it was also his second field goal of the game). 1994 was again plagued by injury. For the third year running he captained NSW to an Origin series win over Queensland, before representing Australia in a mid season test against France at the Parramatta Stadium in Sydney. Following the test Daley underwent knee surgery, and recovered in time to help the Raiders easily win the Grand Final over Canterbury-Bankstown 36–12, scoring a 50-metre try in the first half and showing that he was back to 100% fitness.

In 1995, Ricky Stuart was preferred for the Canberra captaincy after Meninga's retirement, even though Daley had captained both New South Wales and Australia ahead of Stuart. Furthermore, the outbreak of the Super League War and Daley's subsequent support for the rival organisation saw him barred from representative games in 1995, including the World Cup at the end of the season. In 1996, Super League players were once again allowed to compete in representative fixtures sanctioned by the ARL, allowing Daley to compete in State of Origin.

Even though Daley was the incumbent New South Wales captain from 1992 to 1994, Brad Fittler, who had also been appointed Australian captain in 1995, was retained as NSW captain. The following year, the Super League competition was launched, and Daley was appointed to captain the Super League representative teams of both New South Wales and Australia, winning their respective competitions. In 1998, Super League and the Australian Rugby League agreed to combine to launch the National Rugby League competition. Daley took over the Canberra captaincy on a full-time basis after Stuart signed with Canterbury in 1999 and was once again named the Raiders' player of the year.

Although Daley continued to make representative appearances, injuries began to limit his opportunities; and he was forced into retirement in 2000. In September 2007, Daley left his commentary position with Fox Sports and signed a contract with the Nine Network to co-present much of their rugby league coverage, from appearing on the weekly rugby league topic show The Footy Show, to commentating on Nine's weekend league coverage.

However, in August 2012 Daley was appointed the NSW State of Origin coach from 2013, taking over from former Canberra teammate Ricky Stuart. Daley led the Blues to their first series win in 2014, finally breaking the QLD dynasty and delivering the Blues their first series win since 2005. In 2014, Daley became only the second man after Wayne Pearce to play, captain and coach a Blues side to a series win over Queensland. In August 2017, Daley was terminated as New South Wales coach after only winning 6 out of 15 games and winning only 1 out of 5 series. His replacement was Brad Fittler, who coached NSW to three out of six series victories over the Queensland Maroons (2018, 2019 & 2021). In December 2024, Daley was announced to be returning to the NSW State of Origin head coach role after aft Madge Maguire stepped down to coach the Brisbane Broncos.

In February 2008, Daley was named in the list of Australia's 100 Greatest Players (1908–2007) which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia. In August 2008, Daley was named at five-eighth in the Indigenous Team of the Century. In January 2013, the local football ground in his home town of Junee was renamed Laurie Daley Oval.