Tu'u Maori (22 November 1988 – 3 January 2022) was a

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

international

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

footballer who played as a er or . He played in the Australian National Youth Championship (Toyota Cup) for the

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

and

Sydney Roosters Eastern Suburbs District Rugby League Football Club, known as the Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs (Sydney), Eastern Suburbs. The club competes in the National Rugby Lea ...

Playing career

Maori was named in the Papua New Guinea training squad for the

2008 Rugby League World Cup The 2008 Rugby League World Cup was the thirteenth World Cup for men’s rugby league national teams. It was held between 26 October and 22 November and was won by New Zealand, who defeated Australia 34–20 in the final in one of the greatest ...

. He was then named in the

PNG Portable Network Graphics (PNG, officially pronounced , colloquially pronounced ) is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange ...

squad for the

. Maori was part of the 2007 Papua New Guinea Tour of Wales and France. He played against Wales on the wing at the Brewery Field, Bridgend, Wales. He represented the

in the Toyota Cup in 2008. Maori also played for the

Newtown Jets The Newtown Jets are an Australian rugby league football club based in Newtown, New South Wales, Newtown, a suburb of Inner West (Sydney), Sydney's inner west. They currently compete in the NSW Cup competition, having left the top grade after t ...

, the Roosters' feeder club in the NSWRL Cup competition, in 2009. He was named as part of the

squad for the

2009 Pacific Cup The 2009 Pacific Cup, known as the 2009 SP Brewery Pacific Cup due to sponsorship, was a rugby league competition held in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. The competing teams were the , , , , . Tonga, Fiji and PNG had their places in the draw c ...

. He would be part of the

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm is a rugby league football club based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia that participates in the National Rugby League (NRL). The club plays its home games at AAMI Park, and wears a purple and navy blu ...

trial squad ahead of the

2011 NRL season The 2011 NRL season was the 104th season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the fourteenth and last run by the National Rugby League's partnership committee of the Australian Rugby League and News Ltd. The ...

, scoring a try in the club's trial match against the

Canberra Raiders The Canberra Raiders are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the national capital city of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. They have competed in Australasia's elite rugby league competition, the National Rugb ...

in Bega. He played for the

in the 2011

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 ...

Personal life and death

Maori died from

motor neurone disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or—in the United States—Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), is a rare, terminal neurodegenerative disorder that results in the progressive loss of both upper and low ...

at his home in

Ipswich, Queensland Ipswich () is an urban centre within the City of Ipswich in South East Queensland, Australia. Situated on the Bremer River (Queensland), Bremer River, it is approximately 40 km (25 mi) west of the Brisbane central business district. Ipswich is ...

, on 3 January 2022, at the age of 33.

References

External links

Newtown Jets profile
1988 births 2022 deaths Deaths from motor neuron disease in Australia Neurological disease deaths in Queensland New Zealand people of Papua New Guinean descent Newtown Jets NSW Cup players Papua New Guinea national rugby league team players Papua New Guinean rugby league players People educated at St Paul's College, Auckland PNG Prime Minister's XIII players Rugby league centres Rugby league five-eighths Rugby league fullbacks Rugby league players from Auckland {{PapuaNewGuinea-rugbyleague-bio-stub