Kerry Cooper Vuna (born 7 May 1987) is a professional

rugby football Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league. Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The ...

er who plays on the wing for

Newcastle Falcons Newcastle Falcons is a rugby union team that play in Premiership Rugby, England's highest division of rugby union. The club was established in 1877 as the Gosforth Football Club. Around 1882 the club merged with the Northumberland Football Cl ...

Premiership Rugby Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership has consisted of thirteen clubs since 2021, and is the ...

. He played

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

as a for the

New Zealand Warriors The New Zealand Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as ...

and

Newcastle Knights The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. They compete in Australasia's premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, th ...

in the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

competition, before switching to

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School 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 it ...

to play

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

for the

Melbourne Rebels The Melbourne Rebels is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Melbourne. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. They were the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia, until 20 ...

Early years

Cooper Vuna is of

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

n descent. He was born in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

, New Zealand and grew up in Otahuhu with his family. He has three sisters, and four brothers. He is the older brother of Joseph Vuna. Vuna played high school

until he was 15, switching to

after being scouted by the

. His junior club was the

Otahuhu Leopards The Otahuhu Leopards are a rugby league club based in Otahuhu, Auckland. Founded in 1911, the club has produced 49 New Zealand national rugby league team players. The club competes in the Fox Memorial competition run by Auckland Rugby League ...

. And he represented the

Auckland Lions The Auckland Lions were a rugby league club that had teams in both the New Zealand Bartercard Cup and the NSWRL Premier League. They were mostly drawn from the Mt Albert Lions Rugby League club. Mt Albert had a proud tradition in Auckland and had ...

in the

Bartercard Cup The Bartercard Cup (successor of the Lion Red Cup) was the top level rugby league club competition in New Zealand from 2000 until 2007. For the entire life of the tournament it was sponsored by Bartercard. The cup was administered by the New Zeal ...

and

NSWRL Premier League The NSW Cup, currently known as the Knock-On Effect NSW Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a rugby league competition for clubs in New South Wales. The competition has a history dating back to the NSWRFL's origins in 1908, starting off as a reserv ...

Rugby league career

Vuna signed with the

and made his

first grade First grade (also called Grade One, called ''Year 2'' in England or Primary 2 in Scotland) is the first grade in elementary school and the first school year after kindergarten. Children are usually 6–7 years old in this grade. Examples by r ...

debut late in 2004, in Round 24 against the

Parramatta Eels The Parramatta Eels are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta that competes in the National Rugby League. The Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club was formed in 1947, and their ...

. Vuna went on to play five games for the club over the next three years before leaving, seeking regular game time. Vuna signed with the

in mid-2007, seeking to break into first grade. He was picked in the Knights' squad the week he was signed, after the squad suffered several withdrawals. Vuna established himself in the Knights first grade squad, playing in over fifty matches for the club between 2007 and 2010. In Round 24, 2010 Vuna scored 4 tries against the

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., commonly referred to as the Broncos, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos play in Australia's elite com ...

equalling the Newcastle Knights' club record for most tries in a game.

Representative career

Vuna was selected in the

New Zealand national rugby league team The New Zealand national rugby league team (Māori: Tīma rīki motu Aotearoa) has represented New Zealand in rugby league since 1907. Administered by the New Zealand Rugby League, they are commonly known as the Kiwis, after the native bird of ...

' training squad in 2007 but did not make the final squad. Vuna was also named in the Kiwis' 2008 squad training for the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

but played in three matches for

instead. In October 2008 he was named in the final 24-man

squad. In 2011 Cooper was named in the initial 50-man squad for the Tongan Rugby Union Team for the Rugby World Cup.

Rugby union career

In May 2010, Vuna signed a two-year contract with the

. He played the Rebels' pre-season trials against

and

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

; against the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

he ran on with former Wallabies

Stirling Mortlock Stirling Austin Mortlock AM (born 20 May, 1977) is a former Australian professional rugby union player. He has scored more than 1,000 points in Super Rugby, and nearly 500 test points for the Wallabies. Mortlock is a former Wallaby, Melbourne Re ...

and

Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. ...

. He debuted in Super Rugby for the first round of the Rebels season against the Waratahs. He ended the season playing 14 games of the Super Rugby season

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

and scored 4 tries. Vuna played his first game for

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

9 June 2012, against

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

in Brisbane. Vuna played 71 minutes of the Test, the first of a

series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used in ...

of three between Wallabies and the visiting Welshmen. Vuna was selected again for the second test, in Melbourne a week later. In August 2012, Vuna dislocated his shoulder while playing for the Endeavour Hills club. A week later he underwent surgery. According to a Wallabies spokesman, Vuna could expect to face a six-month recovery period. This could see him sidelined until February 2013. In May 2013, it was announced that Vuna would leave the Rebels at the end of the season to join Japanese

Top League Japan Rugby League One (formerly the Top League) is a rugby union competition in Japan. It is the highest level of professional rugby competition in the country. The Japan Rugby Football Union created the competition in 2003, by absorbing the ...

club

Toshiba Brave Lupus Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo is a Japanese rugby union team in the Top League. They are based in Fuchu, Tokyo, as is their local rival Suntory Sungoliath. They won the second ever Top League championship in the 2004-5 season and the Microsoft Cup ...

. He joins head coach Damien Hill and fellow Rebels players James O'Connor,

Gareth Delve Gareth Leon Delve (born 30 December 1982) is a former Wales international rugby union player, and former captain of Gloucester. In late 2010, he moved to Australia where he went on to captain the Melbourne Rebels. His usual position is number 8 ...

Ged Robinson Ged Robinson (born 20 June 1983 in Wellington, New Zealand) is a rugby union footballer. His regular playing position is hooker. He formerly represented the Melbourne Rebels in Super Rugby, and he formerly played 5 games for the and mostly on ...

, Nick Phipps,

Nic Henderson Nic Henderson (born 1 May 1981), is an Australian rugby union player. He played with the Brumbies before joining the Melbourne Rebels for the 2011 and 2012 Super Rugby seasons. He also has three test caps. Henderson retired after the 2013 Super ...

, James King,

Tim Davidson Tim Davidson (born 3 November 1982, in Young, Australia) is a rugby union footballer. His regular playing position is either flanker or eighthman. He represented the Melbourne Rebels in Super Rugby having previously played for the Western For ...

and

Richard Kingi Richard Kingi (born 17 March 1989 in Tauranga, New Zealand) is an Australian professional Rugby union footballer. While his usual position is half back, he often plays on the wing and sometimes at fullback. Career Brought up in Te Puke near th ...

on the list of departing Rebels at the end of 2013. His last game as a Rebels player was a home game against New Zealand franchise the Highlanders, a match that also turned out to be the last Rebels match for head coach Damien Hill and players James O'Connor,

, Nick Phipps and

. In front of over 12,000 spectators, the Rebels overcame a 24-point half-time deficit to achieve a remarkable 38–37 come-from-behind victory over the Highlanders, ending Vuna's tenure as a Rebels player on a winning note, with Vuna scored two tries in the same match. On 2 March 2015, Vuna travelled to England to join

Worcester Warriors Worcester Warriors Rugby Football Club is a professional rugby union club, based in Worcester, England, that is currently in Administration (law), administration and which has been suspended and will be relegated from Premiership Rugby, the top ...

in the

with immediate effect from the 2015-16 season. Following his release from Worcester, Vuna signed for local rivals Bath for the 2018-19 season. On 26 June 2019, Vuna signed for Premiership rivals

on a two-year deal from the 2019-20 season.

Family

His father, John Vuna, represented

. He has a son called Lincoln Vuna

References

External links