Keaon Koloamatangi (born 23 May 1998) is a Tonga international

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 as a forward for the

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney Rabbitohs are a professional Australian 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 pla ...

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 ...

Early life

Koloamatangi grew up in

Burwood, New South Wales Burwood is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the Local government in Australia, local government area of Mun ...

idolising

Sonny Bill Williams Sonny Bill Williams (born 3 August 1985) is a New Zealand heavyweight boxer, and a former professional rugby league and rugby union player and as of recently is working for Stan Sports. He is only the List of dual-code rugby internationals#New ...

and

Willie Mason Viliami William Marshall Mason (born 15 April 1980), also nicknamed "Big Willie", is a former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s. An Australia and Tonga international and New South Wales State of Origin rep ...

but has been a South Sydney junior since he was a kid thanks to his dad Izzy. Keaon was a Mascot Jets junior & once said "Dad wanted me to play for Mascot because they always won! Instead of putting me in the Canterbury comp he wanted me in the Souths comp because he knew a lot of people, a lot of great players came from there." Keaon attended

Ashfield Boys High School Ashfield Boys High School is a government-funded comprehensive single-sex secondary school for boys, located on Liverpool Road, in Ashfield, an inner western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Established in 1962, the school e ...

, he was an outstanding junior sportsman representing the school in a wide variety of sports and still holds several school swimming records. Koloamatangi is of Australian, Tongan, Tuvalu and Niue descent.

Playing career

2020

Koloamatangi made first grade debut in round 4 of the

2020 NRL season The 2020 NRL season was the 113th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 23rd season run by the National Rugby League. Teams The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 14th consecutive year. ; Notes : : : Pre-season ...

for South Sydney (first grade player number 1157) against the

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league club based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia that participates in the National Rugby League. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998. ...

. He made a total of 14 appearances in his first season as the club reached another preliminary final but were defeated by Penrith at

ANZ Stadium ANZ may refer to: People * Anz (musician), a British DJ and electronic musician Banks * ANZ (bank), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, the fourth-largest bank in Australia ** ANZ Bank New Zealand, the largest bank in New Zealand ...

2021

In round 10 of the

2021 NRL season The 2021 NRL season was the 114th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 24th season run by the National Rugby League. Teams The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 15th consecutive year. Regular season Ladd ...

, Koloamatangi scored his first NRL try in South's 32-22 victory over the

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australasia's premier rugby league ...

Suncorp Stadium Lang Park, also known as Brisbane Football Stadium, by the sponsored name Suncorp Stadium, and nicknamed: 'The Cauldron', is a multi-purpose stadium in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, located in the suburb of Milton. The current facility co ...

. Midway through the season, Koloamatangi was selected as 20th man in the NSW Blues squad for the first game of the

2021 State of Origin series The 2021 State of Origin series was the 40th annual best-of-three series between the Queensland and New South Wales rugby league teams. Before this series, Queensland has won 22 times, NSW 15 times, with two series drawn. The venue for Game 1 wa ...

. He played a total of 23 games for South Sydney in the

including the club's

2021 NRL Grand Final The 2021 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 2021 National Rugby League season in Australia. It was contested between the Penrith Panthers and the South Sydney Rabbitohs on Sunday 3 October at Suncorp Stadiu ...

defeat against Penrith.

2022

He played 27 games for South Sydney in the

2022 NRL season The 2022 NRL season is the 115th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 25th season run by the National Rugby League. Teams The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 16th consecutive year. This became the second longest s ...

including all three of the clubs finals matches as they reached the preliminary final for a fifth straight season. Souths would lose in the preliminary final to eventual premiers Penrith 32-12. In October he was named in the Tonga squad for the

2021 Rugby League World Cup The 2021 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC2021) was a collection of world cups in the sport of rugby league, held in England from 15 October to 19 November 2022. England won hosting rights for the competition on 27 October 2016. The bid received £2 ...

. In the opening match of Tonga's

campaign, Koloamatangi scored the winning try in Tonga's 24-18 victory over Papua New Guinea. In November he was named in the 2021 RLWC Team of the Tournament.

2023

In round 7 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 ...

, Koloamatangi was taken from the field during South Sydney's 36-14 victory over the

Dolphins A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (t ...

side with a leg injury and later ruled out for an indefinite period. On 3 July, he was selected by New South Wales for game 3 of the 2023 State of Origin series. Koloamatangi made his debut for New South Wales in game 3 which saw his team win 24-10 over Queensland. He played a total of 18 games for Souths in the 2023 NRL season as the club finished 9th on the table and missed the finals.

References

External links

South Sydney Rabbitohs profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koloamatangi, Keaon 1998 births Living people Australian rugby league players Australian people of Niuean descent Australian sportspeople of Tongan descent Australian people of Tuvaluan descent Rugby league second-rows Rugby league players from Sydney South Sydney Rabbitohs players Tonga national rugby league team players Tongan rugby league players People educated at Ashfield Boys High School New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players