Christian Pharaoh Leali'ifano (born 24 September 1987) is a professional

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player who plays as a

fly-half In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards (wearing jerseys numbered 1–8) and seven backs (numbered 9–15). In addition, there may be up to eight replacement players "on the bench", numbered 16� ...

for

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 has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

club

Moana Pasifika Moana Pasifika is a professional rugby union team based in New Zealand and made up of players from various Pacific Island nations as well as New Zealand or Australian born players of Pasifika heritage, including Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and the Cook I ...

. Born in New Zealand, he represents

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...

at international level after qualifying on ancestry grounds, having previously played over twenty-five times for

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

between 2013 and 2019.

Early life

Leali'ifano was born in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand, and moved with his family to

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, Australia when he was seven years old. He attended Epping Primary School and Peter Lalor Secondary College. He played

for the

Australian Schoolboys The Australian Schoolboys refer to junior teams that represent Australia in various sports. The name is mainly used in rugby league, rugby union and baseball. Other popular team sports in Australia such as cricket, basketball, association footbal ...

team in 2004 and 2005. Leali'ifano joined the Brumbies rugby academy program in 2006. Later that year he was selected for the Australian Under 19 and Under 21 rugby teams. He played

for the Australian Under 19 rugby team that won the IRB World Championship in 2006.

Club career

In 2007, Leali'ifano signed with the Brumbies on a rookie contract. He played for the

Australian Sevens The Australia Sevens is an international rugby sevens tournament that was first played in 1986. Currently hosted as the Sydney Sevens, the event is part of the World Rugby Sevens Series. The tournament was held in Brisbane, in Adelaide, and on ...

rugby team, and for the

Canberra Vikings The Canberra Vikings, formerly the Canberra Kookaburras, was an Australian rugby union football team that competed in the National Rugby Championship (NRC) until 2019. The team was based at Viking Park in Wanniassa, and is backed by the Tugge ...

in the

Australian Rugby Championship The Australian Rugby Championship, often abbreviated to the ARC and also known as the Mazda Australian Rugby Championship for sponsorship purposes, was a domestic professional men's rugby union football competition in Australia, which ran for onl ...

in 2007. Leali'ifano made his

debut in 2008 against the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

. He played

in 2008 and 2009, before shifting to

inside centre In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards (wearing jerseys numbered 1–8) and seven backs (numbered 9–15). In addition, there may be up to eight replacement players "on the bench", numbered 16� ...

when Matt Giteau returned to the Brumbies in 2010. Leali'ifano played six Super 14 games for the Brumbies in 2010 before being sidelined with a knee injury (rupture to his posterior cruciate). He recovered by July to play in the

ITM Cup ITM may stand for: Education * ITM Law School, one of the professional graduate schools of ITM University * ITM-IFM, Mumbai, India * Institut Teknologi Mara, a public university in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia * Institute for Information, Tel ...

for

Waikato The Waikato () is a region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipā District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton City, as well as Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, the nort ...

in 2010, and he played fourteen matches for the Brumbies in 2011. In 2012, Leali'ifano was named Man of the Match by Super Rugby officials for eight out of the ten Super Rugby games he played. Unfortunately, he suffered a broken ankle in his tenth game which ended his season and any chance of being selected for the Wallabies in 2012. In August 2017, after successful treatment for leukaemia, Leali'ifano signed for Irish

Pro14 The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. For sponsorship reasons the league is known as the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in ...

and

European Rugby Champions Cup The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Investec Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a pr ...

side

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

on a 5-month loan deal. For the

2022 Super Rugby Pacific season The 2022 Super Rugby Pacific season (known as Harvey Norman Super Rugby Pacific in Australia and DHL Super Rugby Pacific in New Zealand) is the 27th season of Super Rugby, an annual rugby union competition organised by SANZAAR between teams f ...

he has signed with the

franchise. On 7 May 2022 in a game against the Waratahs, Leali'ifano became the 7th player to reach 1,000 Super Rugby points.

International career

Leali'ifano's test debut for the

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and som ...

lasted less than one minute. On 22 June 2013, he was knocked out attempting to tackle the

British and Irish Lions The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England national rugby union team, England, Ireland national rugby union team, Ireland, Scotland national rugby union team, Scotland, and ...

centre Jonathan Davies in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Personal life

In August 2016, two weeks after the Brumbies were knocked out of the Super Rugby finals, Leali'ifano was diagnosed with

leukaemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

. He has resumed playing after receiving a bone marrow transplant, and in 2017 signed for Ulster, who play in the Pro14, on loan. He has signed with the

for the

Career statistics

Club summary

References

External links

*
Wallabies Profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Leali'ifano, Christian 1987 births Rugby union players from Auckland Samoan rugby union players Samoa international rugby union players Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby union players New Zealand rugby union players New Zealand emigrants to Australia Australian sportspeople of Samoan descent New Zealand sportspeople of Samoan descent ACT Brumbies players Canberra Vikings players Rugby union centres Rugby union fly-halves Living people Waikato rugby union players Tokyo Sungoliath players Expatriate rugby union players in Northern Ireland Australian expatriate sportspeople in Northern Ireland Ulster Rugby players Moana Pasifika players Toyota Industries Shuttles Aichi players Urayasu D-Rocks players LA Giltinis players Rugby union players from Melbourne Expatriate ice hockey players in Australia 2019 Rugby World Cup players 2023 Rugby World Cup players Australian expatriate rugby union players in Japan Auckland rugby union players Rugby Football Club Los Angeles players