 Pelesasa in 2012 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth name | Junior Pelesasa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date of birth | 17 October 1980 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 94 kg (14 st 11 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| School | Onehunga High School Nudgee College | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Junior Pelesasa (born 17 October 1980 in New Zealand) is an Australian rugby union footballer who currently plays for Agen. He plays as a centre.
Pelesasa moved to Australia from New Zealand at the age of 16. He has represented Australia Schoolboys, Australia Under 21s and Australia A. He spent two years playing for the Brisbane Broncos rugby league team after which he left Rugby league and joined Rugby Union playing for the Queensland provincial side before being drafted into the Queensland Reds Super 12 side where he played 33 matches for them. In 2006 he moved to a new Super Rugby franchise known as the Western Force. He played 5 matches for his new team during the 2006 season in which they finished last in the 2006 Super 14 competition.
Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the Super 12 in the 1996 season with 12 teams from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, building on competitions dating back to the South Pacific Championship in 1986. The Super 12 was established by SANZAR after the sport became professional in 1995. After the COVID-19 pandemic forced the competition to split into three, the reformed competition in 2021 only included teams from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands.
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Rugby union in Queensland has traditionally been one of the most popular professional and recreational team sports in the state. Rugby union was introduced in the British colony's capital Brisbane in 1876. Initially it struggled to gain a foothold due to the popularity of Australian rules there until it got its break in 1882 with the first inter-colonial matches against New South Wales, and the formation of the Northern Rugby Union. Between 1885 and 1887 it became the dominant code after the leading schools association decided to play it exclusively and after 1890 spread virtually unopposed throughout the colony.
James David O'Connor is an Australian professional rugby union footballer who currently plays for Queensland Reds in Super Rugby. He made his international debut for Australia in 2008 at the age of eighteen. He has played for the Western Force and Melbourne Rebels in Super Rugby. In 2013 he played for English Premiership side London Irish, and in the 2014–15 season he moved to France to play in the Top 14 competition for Toulon. His regular playing positions are Fly-half, Centre, Fullback and Wing.
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Curtis Rona is a former Australian international rugby union footballer who recently played for London Irish in the English Premiership. He now plays for Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Sagamihara Dynaboars.
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Super Rugby Women's is an annual professional women's rugby union club competition organised by Rugby Australia. It is contested by five clubs from Australia and one club from Fiji, who play a single series of round-robin matches to determine the four participants of a single-elimination tournament. The competition replaced the representative National Women's Championship with five teams owned by the Australian Super Rugby franchises, and began play in the 2018 season as an amateur league known as the Super W. The 2022 season saw the addition of a team from Fiji, and the introduction of salaries for players. The league adopted its current name in the 2024 season. Fijiana Drua are the current champions, while the New South Wales Waratahs have won the most championships (4).
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