| Birth name | Tim Molenaar | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 19 February 1981 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Masterton, New Zealand | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 111 kg (17 st 7 lb) [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tim Molenaar (born 19 February 1981 in Masterton, New Zealand) is a rugby union player for Moseley in the RFU Championship. He plays as a centre.
Masterton is a large town in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and the seat of the Masterton District. It is the largest town in the Wairarapa, a region separated from Wellington by the Rimutaka ranges. It is 100 kilometres north-east of Wellington, 39.4 kilometres south of Eketahuna, on the Ruamahanga River.
New Zealand is a sovereign island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, and the South Island —and around 600 smaller islands. It has a total land area of 268,000 square kilometres (103,500 sq mi). New Zealand is situated some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, and plant life. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland.
Rugby union, widely known simply as rugby, is a contact team sport which originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is between two teams of 15 players using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field with H-shaped goalposts at each end.
Molenaar signed for Gloucester Rugby from Nottingham in August 2009 after a deal to sign Seru Rabeni fell through. [2]
Gloucester Rugby are a professional rugby union club based in the West Country city of Gloucester. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby, as well as in European competitions.
Ratu Seru Rabeni was a Fijian rugby union player. He played as a centre or wing.
On 28 October 2013, it was announced that Harlequins have signed Tim Molenaar to a short-term deal following his release from Gloucester Rugby [3] Following his release from Harlequins, Molenaar signed for newly promoted side London Welsh for the 2014-15 season. [4] On 8 June 2015, Molenaar returned to the RFU Championship to sign for Moseley from the 2015-16 season. [5]
The Harlequin Football Club is an English rugby union team that plays in the top level of English rugby, the English Premiership. Their ground in London is the Twickenham Stoop. They were one of the founding members of the RFU.
The RFU Championship, known for sponsorship reasons as the Greene King IPA Championship from 2013–14, is the second tier of the English rugby union league system and was founded in September 1987. The twelve-side league was known as National Division One and in 2009 changed from semi-professional clubs to fully professional. The 2018 champions were Bristol Bears as they won the league. They won automatic promotion to Premiership Rugby.
