Folau Fainga'a (born 5 May 1995) is an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

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 currently plays at hooker for the

Western Force The Western Force is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia, currently competing in Super Rugby, Super Rugby Pacific. They previously played in Super Rugby from 2006 until they were axed from the competitio ...

. He previously played for the ACT

Brumbies The ACT Brumbies (known from 2005 to 2022 as simply the Brumbies) is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), The team competes in Super Rugby and named for the feral horses which inh ...

and the . Folau is currently signed on with Rugby Australia and was selected for the Australian national rugby team, the Wallabies, for the 2022 season.

Career

Fainga'a began his senior rugby career with

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

. He played for that club in the

Shute Shield The Shute Shield, currently known as the Charter Hall Shute Shield, is a semi-professional rugby union competition in Sydney, Australia. It is the premier club competition in New South Wales. The Shute Shield is awarded to the winning team fro ...

for three seasons starting from 2015. Fainga'a was selected for the Australian Under-20 team in 2015 and played at the

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

in Italy. He was also part of the

Sydney Stars The Sydney Stars is a former Australian rugby union football team that competed in the National Rugby Championship (NRC) in 2014 and 2015. The Stars team was established as a joint venture between the Sydney Uni Football Club, Sydney University a ...

squad for the

National Rugby Championship The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams, seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded in 2020 following t ...

(NRC) that year but did not play any matches for the team. Fainga'a made his NRC debut off the bench for the in 2016 against 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 ...

. Fainga'a signed an extended player squad contract with the Brumbies for the 2018 season, joining the Canberra Vikings late in the 2017 season. After impressing in his play for the Vikings, Fainga'a was invited by Australian national coach

Michael Cheika Michael Cheika (born 4 March 1967) is an Australian professional rugby union and rugby league coach, and former rugby union player. He is head coach of Leicester Tigers in England's Premiership Rugby. Cheika was the coach of the Australia r ...

to join 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 ...

squad as a development player ahead of the third Test for the

Bledisloe Cup The Bledisloe Cup is an annual rugby union competition between the national teams of Australia's Wallabies and New Zealand's All Blacks that has been contested since the 1930s. The frequency that the competition is held has varied, as has the n ...

and Barbarians F.C. matches in October 2017.

International tries

''As of 3 July 2022''

Super Rugby statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fainga'a, Folau 1995 births Australia international rugby union players Australian rugby union players Australian sportspeople of Tongan descent New South Wales Country Eagles players Canberra Vikings players Rugby union hookers Living people ACT Brumbies players Sydney Stars players Rugby union players from Sydney Western Force players 2019 Rugby World Cup players Sydney University Football Club players ASM Clermont Auvergne players 21st-century Australian sportsmen