ASSRL Nationals U18 Insider: Ex-NRL cult hero’s words inspiring emerging NSW star Jope Rauqe
A talented NSW CCC centre has revealed the words from his former NRL uncle which are driving him on the field at the ASSRL Nationals. Find out more in our tournament insider.
Rugby League Live Stream
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rugby League Live Stream. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Four words spoken by a former NRL prop have inspired an emerging NSW CCC outside back at this week’s ASSRL Nationals in Coffs Harbour.
Holy Cross College senior Jope Rauqe lives by words of wisdom handed down by former Roosters prop and Fiji international Eloni Vunakece, his uncle, who has encouraged him to be ruthless.
“Kill or be killed” was Vunakece’s advice for Rauqe on his rugby league journey, which reached a flashpoint earlier in the year representing the Bulldogs Harold Matthews side, and which will reach another high in Thursday’s semi-final.
“Probably Eloni Vunakece (has been a big inspiration). He has been close to me probably ever since I started high school. Because we are from the same village back in Fiji (Tavua) so he has kind of been there,” said Rauqe.
“He is in Sydney. He has taught me to be tough out there.
“Be ruthless. Kill or be killed.
“He used to run around with my dad, he is my uncle.”
Born and raised in Sydney, Rauqe first started playing the game at just four years of age and now, aged 17, is using Vunakece’s advice and his father Senirusi “Bruce” Rauqe’s athletic Fijian bloodlines to influence games for NSW CCC.
“Bruce” represented the Fiji 7s team before Jope was born and the 192cm athlete has that Fijian flare about him, just watch some of his high-flying highlights for the Bulldogs.
Jope Rauqe was also a talented field athlete, having notched a personal best 184cm in high jump just prior to the championships.
“It has helped me get up and above other players,” Rauqe said.
THE MOVE WHICH CHANGED NSW SCHOOLBOY’S DESTINY
One of Australia’s best schoolboy outside backs was headed down a different path less than two years ago but on Thursday will contest the ASSRL National Championships semi-finals.
Endeavour Sports High School senior Nikora Williams was planning to drop out of high school at the end of Year 10 at Shire Christian School in 2022 before his current school coach Dave Howlett changed his destiny.
“He brought me over to Endeavour, he has given me opportunities definitely,” the 2023 Australian Schoolboys selection said.
“In Year 10 I was going to drop out, I was at a different school, but he brought me over. You know he has just invested in me and shows how much he really cares… he has definitely changed me and made me into the player I am today.
“I was going to do a trade apprenticeship after Year 10 and just left and Howlett’s obviously given me an opportunity and I have come here to represent CHS so it’s pretty good.”
Williams’ NSW CHS side triumphed 26-10 over the ACT on Tuesday, booking a semi-final spot against Queensland on Thursday.
Williams, who less than two weeks ago played right centre in the Sharks’ 18-6 Jersey Flegg Cup win over the Roosters, grew up competing against his older brother Tuia, 21, who plays in the Roosters NSW Cup team.
“It was honestly just rugby league (growing up). Me and him were really competitive. We have come up with a real competitive family, all of it’s about winning,” the Menai Roosters junior said.
“My brother has just told me from a young age unless your winning your losing… every time I step on the footy field my mind changes and that is real good to have in my mind.”
Williams, like many other young guns contesting this year’s championships, one day hopes to break into the NRL.
“It is really good,” he said about how special it was being with the Sharks having grown up in the Shire area.
“Fitzy (Sharks coach Craig Fitzgerald) is down there. They’ve spoken to me saying ‘we want to invest in the juniors’ and I have seen what they have done with the juniors with kids like Riley Pollard that have come through the Australian Schoolboys, you know Sam Stonestreet.
“He grew up in the Shire and they have really invested in him and he’s obviously played NRL and just keeps getting better.
“Hopefully I can come through and represent the Sharks definitely in the NRL one day.”
DRAGONS SNARE SIGNATURE OF POWERFUL MAROONS WINGER
The astute St George Illawarra Dragons selectors have snared the signature of impressive outside back Saifiti Junior Saifiti, a powerful wing from Ipswich State High School.
It follows a string of Ipswich SHS signings by the Dragons, with SG Ball Cup players Brandon Tikinau, Loko Pasifiki-Tonga and Tyler Peckham-Harris all past Ipswich SHS students who earlier this year helped engineer the NSWRL Under-19s premiership with the club.
Saifiti, who has signed for three years and will join the club’s NRL squad and play in the Jersey Flegg Cup, is one of three Ipswich SHS seniors helping QRSS on their pursuit of ASSRL championships glory at Coffs Harbour.
The other two are middle forward powerhouses Kanaan Magele and Xzavier Timoteo, who, like the Samoan born Saifiti, will pack up shop in Ipswich and move south later this year.
Saifiti will move to Wollongong, while Sydney Roosters signees Timoteo and Magele will move into the club’s academy housing.
Magele is a New Zealand born brute who came across this year for Year 12, while Logan raised enforcer Timoteo began at Ipswich SHS in Year 7.
Timoteo’s love for the game started when he attended games at the Acacia Ridge Magpies junior rugby league club.
“Going to my brother’s trainings when were younger, just kicking the footy around,” the Ipswich Rangers rugby union junior said of his first memories playing the game.
“The older boys above me (at Ipswich SHS) I looked up to and they inspired me (Josiah Pahulu, Titans and Kulikefu Finefeuiaki, Cowboys).
“My goal was just to put on that first-grade jersey and try to inspire all the younger students at the school.”
SAVAGE FOLLOWING PATH OF NRL WINGER BROTHER
The ASSRL Championships resumed Tuesday on the pristine Coffs International Stadium Turf where the ACT schoolgirls brought up their second successive victory with a convincing 18-0 win over the Northern Territory.
Eliza Taylor, Angelina Costa, Magdalena Velovski and Makenna Ravouvou all crossed the stripe in the win and again there was a familiar last name.
Tall and athletic ACT left winger Gabriella Savage, who had a handful of positive involvements in the game, is the younger sister of Canberra Raiders flyer Xavier Savage.
Last year Gabriella was selected in the 16 Years Queensland team out of Trinity Bay State High School in Cairns but this year has followed in her brother’s footsteps by moving out of home at a young age to continue her schooling in a different environment.
“Him moving away too at a young age. It wasn’t easy for him as well. Me making that move, having him to support me,” Gabriella said.
At the age of 15 Xavier moved from his family home in Cairns to Brisbane Boys’ College where he boarded, before finishing school at Palm Beach Currumbin SHS where he was one of the most electric schoolboys in the country.
Gabriella, 16, earlier this year moved from her home in Cairns all the way to Canberra where she now lives with her brother Xavier and attends Dickson College.
“Only this year moved in with him, something new, something different,” Year 11 student Gabriella said.
“It was just a change, I needed it.
“I am living with him … and his partner, so us three. They are my guardians at the moment. Very young but it is a fun household.
“Yeah definitely (it is cool to be reunited). I think we needed each other. I needed an older brother … it was good for us this year, we have definitely gotten closer.
“His attitude towards his game has definitely improved having family constantly travelling through.
“I definitely try to match his energy and stats somehow, that’s something for me to push myself to.
“I probably eat the same as him at this point … it makes me fill up, get a good breakfast and everything.”
MEET THE 204CM, 112KG PROP TOWERING OVER NATIONALS
Some skip breakfast. Some might have a coffee. Some might have a bite to get them going.
Well 204cm Combined Affilliated States enforcer Shalom Uatisone prefers a 12-pack of caged eggs to kickstart his day.
A prop from the land of the giants, Uatisone is just one of the big boppers contesting this year’s U18 ASSRL National Championships.
Some others include Jacob Ma’u-Pohiva (ACT), Cody Hopwood (NSWCCC), Simione Laiafi (NSWCHS) and Xzavier Timeteo (QRSS), just to name a few.
But Auckland born 17-year-old Uatisone, who has Samoan heritage, would be close to the biggest and in stints against a fired-up Queensland outfit, he used his size and mobility to challenge their defences.
The Mt Ridley College, Craigieburn senior grew up in New Zealand but moved across the Tasman in 2017 for better opportunities – not in rugby league.
“I only started footy probably two, three years ago,” said Uatisone.
“I played junior league back in New Zealand … but it was just to get me moving.
“I think I started in Year 10 … I was pushing nearly 120, 130 kilograms and it wasn’t just muscle it was straight fat.
“At first it was just a lose weight kind of thing,” Uatisone said of his initial decision to take rugby league seriously in Year 10.
At that time he was 192cm tall.
At the back end of that year, 2022, Uatisone was selected in the CAS championship squad which is what has primed him for higher honours.
“From there that is kind of where I gained my confidence, I was like ‘okay maybe rugby league is kind of a thing for me’ and Year 11 was more of an improvement year,” he said.
On one occasion early last year, Uatisone was working so hard he had a lapse in training.
“I was training so hard with the Hurricanes (Storm junior squad) and I wasn’t eating because I was trying to lose that much weight and I wasn’t eating during all those heavy trainings.
“I had a little lapse of dehydration … that was a bit of a scare … that was when we started focusing on my hydration before my games, diet, nutrition.”
The fit as a fiddle 112kg prop played three games for the Melbourne Storm’s SG Ball Cup Under-19s earlier this year and his main goal for this year is to sign to an NRL club.
Uatisone said his extended family back in New Zealand, younger sister Siale and mother Leuma were inspiring him to achieve something more in rugby league.
“I have a lot of little nieces and nephews back at home … I want to support my family back at home, bringing them here maybe one day for the opportunities.”
QUEENSLAND HALFBACK TURNING HEADS AT NATIONALS
Watching Queensland schoolgirls young gun Chloe Pallisier at times looks like you’re watching a seasoned veteran.
It is because Pallisier, who on Monday celebrated her 18th birthday with a player of the match distinction in her team’s 36-0 win over WA at the ASSRL Nationals, is a player who has time.
The birthday girl, who was raised in Chinchilla, started her rugby league journey at eight years of age in the boys team.
On Monday she had her prints all over Queensland’s eight try barrage, setting up all three of right wing Mercedez Tauleilei-Siala’s tries.
Pallisier grew up wanting to be the best, proving to the boys in her team that she was just as good. She isn’t just good, she is a multisport athlete who surprisingly is still NRLW unsigned.
But clubs should start circling now as the halfback leaves her mark on the ASSRL Championships in Coffs Harbour this week.
Pallisier, whose idol is fellow Darling Downs product Steph Hancock (Warwick), gained a footing in the code via touch football where she was an award-winning performer for the Darling Downs at the Touch Football State Championships earlier this holidays in Brisbane.
The Glennie School ace will be back at Coffs Harbour in September to contest the Touch Football National Youth Championship, but first she will conduct Queensland’s attack which has amassed 54 points in two games so far.
Pallisier said she drew confidence from playing touch football where there was more space and felt she had more time to create for her outside backs Jen Kimber, Zoe Robson and Mariah Brown who were all beneficiaries of her playmaking in Queensland’s second win of the championships.
Originally published as ASSRL Nationals U18 Insider: Ex-NRL cult hero’s words inspiring emerging NSW star Jope Rauqe
REPLAYS: Mackay SHS stand and deliver, Aaron Payne Cup
Rivalries between state schools and colleges invariably get heated and the battle of Mackay has delivered on that front. But who won on the scoreboard? Watch both Cup and Challenge REPLAYS in full.
REPLAYS: Huge first half paves way for Wavell win
With a passionate crowd cheering them on, Wavell had this game in the bag by halftime break after winger Kurt Jones starred with two tries and a try assist. Check out the REPLAYS.