Junior Pauga (born 3 February 1996) is a professional

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 ...

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays for the

Sydney City Roosters The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional Rugby league, Rugby League Football Club based in the Eastern Suburbs (Sydney) and parts of inner Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. The Roosters have won ...

as a or er. He previously played for the

Wests Tigers The Wests Tigers are an Australian professional Rugby league, rugby league football team, based in the Inner West and South West Sydney. They have competed in the National Rugby League since being formed at the end of the 1999 NRL season as a j ...

in the

NRL 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 ...

Background

Born in

Ōtāhuhu Ōtāhuhu is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand – to the southeast of the CBD, on a narrow isthmus between an arm of the Manukau Harbour to the west and the Tamaki River estuary to the east. The isthmus is the narrowest connection between the ...

, Auckland, New Zealand, Pauga was a student at

Kelston Boys' High School Kelston Boys' High School ("KBHS") (Te kura tuarua o nga tamatane o kerehana) is an all-boys state secondary school in Kelston, a suburb in the Waitakere region of Auckland, New Zealand. It was created in 1963 when the roll of Kelston High Scho ...

. In 2014, he was named MVP of the national secondary school tournament and chosen in the NZ Secondary Schools team to play New South Wales.

Career

2016-20

Between 2016 and 2018, Pauga was a member of 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 ...

NSW Cup 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 reserve ...

team. From 2019, he joined the

Wynnum Manly Seagulls The Wynnum-Manly Seagulls are an Australian rugby league football club based at Kougari Oval, in Brisbane's bayside suburb of Manly West, which neighbours the suburb of Wynnum. They competed in the Brisbane Rugby League from 1951 to 1997. Since ...

in the

Queensland Cup The Queensland Cup, currently known as the Hostplus Cup for sponsorship reasons, is the highest-level regional rugby league football competition in Queensland, Australia. It is run by the Queensland Rugby League (QRL) and is contested by four ...

. In his first season, he played 13 games for 10 wins, 3 tries, 9 goals. and was a member of the team that lost to the

Burleigh Bears The Burleigh Bears are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Gold Coast, Australia. They compete in Queensland's top rugby league competition, the Queensland Cup. Since their admission to the competition in 1997, the ...

in the grand final. In 2020, Pauga made one appearance in Wynnum's first grade before the competition was cancelled because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. One of a handful of players who chose to join the lower-grade team when that competition restarted, Pauga scored a try and kicked 6 goals as Wynnum won the reserve grade grand final. He said, "When COVID hit, we got told that Cup was off; and then I heard that

BRL The Brazilian real (plural, pl. '; currency symbol, sign: R$; ISO 4217, code: BRL) is the official currency of Brazil. It is subdivided into 100 centavos. The Central Bank of Brazil is the central bank and the issuing authority. The real repl ...

was coming back, so I was like... even though Cup was not on, I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to play footy and have fun with the boys. It was pretty good to be part of the team; I have some mates, we all came from New Zealand and the goal was for them to play Cup this year." After playing the first 4 games with Wynnum in 2021, Pauga was released to join the Wests Tigers in the NRL.

2021

Pauga made his debut in round 18, for the Wests Tigers 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 ...

, scoring a try in a 42-24 victory. Before the game, he said, "It’s been a tough journey over the past three years. After leaving the Warriors, I didn’t have anything and had to go to Queensland to start all over again. When this opportunity came up, I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to take it with both hands and I don’t ever want to take it for granted."

2022

In November 2022, Pauga signed for North Sydney ahead of the 2023 season.

2023

In round 14 of the

2023 NRL season The 2023 NRL season is the 116th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 26th season run by the National Rugby League. Teams For the 2023 season, the number of teams in the NRL has increased from sixteen to seventeen with the ...

, Pauga scored a try on his club debut for the Sydney Roosters in their 25-24 victory over Canterbury.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pauga, Junior 1996 births New Zealand rugby league players Rugby league centres Wests Tigers players Sydney Roosters players Western Suburbs Magpies NSW Cup players Living people Rugby league players from Auckland