Jordan Uelese (born 24 January 1997) is an Australian professional

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 its m ...

player 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 2017 ...

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 ...

. He has been capped for the Australian national team. His usual position is hooker.

Early life

Uelese was born in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

, New Zealand, where he started playing rugby for the Oriental Rongotai club. He moved with his family to Melbourne at the age of eleven and attended Marymede Catholic College in South Morang, before moving in 2013 to St. Kevin's College in Melbourne. As a teenageer he was a loose forward before switching to hooker, the position he played for the Rebels Under-20 side in the

National Championships A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best team, indi ...

Career

Uelese was selected for the Australia Under 20 team two years in a row, playing at the World Rugby Championships in Manchester in 2016 and then in Georgia in 2017. Uelese made his Super Rugby debut in the opening round of the 2017 season against the

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

as a replacement for Patrick Leafa in a defeat for the Rebels, becoming the third 'home-grown' player for the Rebels. In September 2017 he made his debut 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 ...

against the

Springboks The South Africa national rugby union team, commonly known as the Springboks (colloquially the Boks, Bokke or Amabokoboko), is the country's national team governed by the South African Rugby Union. The Springboks play in green and gold jersey ...

in a 23–23 draw at

nib Stadium Perth Oval, currently branded HBF Park (under a sponsorship agreement with HBF Health Fund) and called Perth Rectangular Stadium for international football matches, is a sports stadium in Perth, the capital of the Australian state of Western A ...

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

Super Rugby statistics

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Uelese, Jordan 1997 births Australian rugby union players Rugby union players from Melbourne Australian sportspeople of Samoan descent Australian people of New Zealand descent Australia international rugby union players Rugby union hookers Melbourne Rebels players Melbourne Rising players Living people New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in Australia Rugby union players from Wellington City 2019 Rugby World Cup players 2023 Rugby World Cup players