Date of birth | 21 March 1988 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Height | 1.82 m (6 ft 0 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 88 kg (13 st 12 lb; 194 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tevita Taufuʻi (born 21 March 1988) is a Tongan rugby union player who played as a centre for Waikato and Manawatu in New Zealand's national provincial competitions and for the Tonga national rugby union team. [1] [2]
After debuting for the Manawatu Turbos during the 2009 Air New Zealand Cup, the next 5 years of his career were ones of ups and downs. Making the ITM Cup squad in 3 of his 5 seasons in Manawatu, playing 16 times and scoring 3 tries. Stifled by a lack of opportunities, he headed to Waikato and played club rugby with the Melville Club.
2016 was his breakthrough year; after helping Melville to win a first Breweries Shield in 35 years in July, he was named in Waikato's 2016 Mitre 10 Cup squad. He debuted for the Mooloo in their Ranfurly Shield defence against Thames Valley on 6 June 2016 and made 11 Ranfurly Shield and Mitre 10 Cup appearances during the season, scoring 2 tries in the process. [3] [4]
Taufuʻi earned a call up to the Tonga squad ahead of the 2016 end-of-year rugby union internationals and earned his first cap as a second-half replacement in a 28–13 win over Spain on 12 November 2016. [4] [5]
The National Provincial Championship (NPC) is an annual round-robin rugby union competition in men's domestic New Zealand rugby. First played in 1976, it is the second highest level of competition in New Zealand alongside the Ranfurly Shield. It is organised by New Zealand Rugby (NZR) and since 2021, it has been known as the Bunnings NPC after Bunnings, its naming rights sponsor. A concurrent women's tournament is also held, the Farah Palmer Cup.
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The Otago Rugby Football Union is the official governing body of rugby union for the Otago region of New Zealand. The union is based in the city of Dunedin, and its home ground is Forsyth Barr Stadium. The top representative team competes in the ITM Cup, New Zealand's top provincial competition. The union was to have been liquidated in March 2012. However a deal involving the Dunedin City Council allowed it to keep operating. Otago have won the Ranfurly Shield on seven occasions. They were the National provincial championship winners in 1991 and 1998. They have a proud record playing international teams, having defeated South Africa and the British and Irish Lions.
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