Semi Radradra
200px | ||||||
Radradra playing for the Wentworthville Magpies in 2013. | ||||||
Personal information | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Full name | Semi Radradra Turagasoli Waqavatu | |||||
Nickname | Semi Trailer[1] | |||||
Born | Suva, Fiji |
13 June 1992 |||||
Height | 190 cm (6 ft 3 in) | |||||
Weight | 100 kg (15 st 10 lb) | |||||
Playing information | ||||||
Position | Wing, Centre | |||||
Club | ||||||
Years | Team | Pld | T | G | FG | P |
2013– | Parramatta Eels | 61 | 57 | 0 | 0 | 228 |
Representative | ||||||
Years | Team | Pld | T | G | FG | P |
2013–14 | Fiji | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
2016 | World All Stars | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
2016 | Australia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
As of 13 March 2016 | ||||||
Source: [2] |
Semi Radradra Turagasoli Waqavatu (born 13 June 1992) is a Fijian professional rugby league footballer who currently plays for the Parramatta Eels in the National Rugby League. He is a Fiji international representative and plays at wing. In April 2016, he was selected to play for Australia.
Contents
Background
Born in Suva, Fiji, Radradra played his junior football for the Vatukoula Rugby Union club, while he worked in the mines in Vatukoula. Radradra played in the 2011 IRB Junior World Championship and for the Fiji national sevens side before being signed by the Parramatta Eels. Radradra played for the Eels NYC team in 2012 before moving on to their New South Wales Cup team the Wentworthville Magpies.[3]
Playing career
2013
In Round 18, Radradra made his NRL debut for the Eels against the Penrith Panthers on the wing in the Eels 17-10 loss at Parramatta Stadium.[4] In Round 20 against the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Radradra scored his first NRL try in the Eels 40-12 loss at ANZ Stadium.[5] Radradra finished his debut year in the NRL with him playing in 7 matches and scoring 5 tries. Radradra was selected in the Fiji squad for the World Cup,[6] playing in 3 matches and scoring 1 try, in the 34-12 loss to England.[7]
2014
In February, Radradra was selected in the Eels inaugural Auckland Nines squad and was the tournament's highest try scorer alongside the North Queensland Cowboys Kyle Feldt with 5 tries.[8] In Round 1 against the New Zealand Warriors, Radradra scored a hat-trick in the Eels' 36-16 win at Parramatta Stadium, earning the nickname Semi-Trailer.[9][10] In May, Radradra played for Fiji in the 2014 Pacific Rugby League International against Samoa at centre in the 32-16 loss.[11] On 4 June, Radradra re-signed with the Eels on a 4-year contract worth $1 million to the end of the 2018 season.[12] He was named 2014 Dally M Winger of the year.[13] Radradra played in all of the Eels 24 matches and scored 19 tries. He was awarded the Fiji Bati International Player of the Year Award.
2015
At the start of the year, Radradra again played for the Eels in the Nines.[14] In Round 1 against the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, he scored a hat-trick of tries in the Eels' 42-12 win at Parramatta Stadium.[15] Radradra was the first player to score consecutive hat-tricks in the first round of two separate NRL seasons. In Round 17 against the West Tigers, he broke a 61-year-old record by becoming the first player to score 2 or more tries in 5 consecutive games when he scored his double in the Eels' 28-16 win at ANZ Stadium.[16] The previous record was held by Ray Preston.[17] In the final round of the season against the Canberra Raiders, Radradra scored 2 tries in the Eels' golden-point 28-24 loss to finish with 24 tries in 18 games, making him the top try-scorer of the season.[18] This was a club record, surpassing Steve Ella's previous record of 23 tries.[19] Radradra was named the Dally M Winger of the Year, for the second year in a row,[20] and was named on the wing in the 2015 RLIF Team of the Year, the first Fijian player to do so.
2016
On 1 February, Radradra again played in Auckland Nines.[21] On 13 February, he played for the World All Stars against the Indigenous All Stars in the 2016 All Stars match, playing on the wing and scoring a try in his team's 12-8 win at Suncorp Stadium.[22][23][24] Early into the 2016 season, he declared that he wanted to play international football for Australia after he found out he was qualified for Australia on residency grounds, so he changed allegiances from Fiji, commenting "I want to be known as the best Fijian rugby player around the world and I want to be playing the top teams," Radradra said. "I want to play alongside all the big names. That's how I made my decision and Australia is the right team for me to showcase my talent".[25] However, while being eligible for Australia, he was ruled ineligible for New South Wales because he didn't play junior football in the state before the age of 13.[26] His decision to switch over to play for Australia drew plenty of criticism in the lead-up to the 2016 Anzac Test.[27] On 6 May, he made his debut for Australia against New Zealand in the Anzac Test.[28] He played on the wing and was sin-binned early into the match for a professional foul.[29]
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
Cite error: Invalid <references>
tag; parameter "group" is allowed only.
<references />
, or <references group="..." />
External links
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ [1][dead link]
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Pages with reference errors
- Use dmy dates from March 2015
- Use Australian English from July 2013
- All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
- Pages with broken file links
- Infobox rugby league biography templates needing updating
- 1992 births
- Fijian rugby league players
- Fiji national rugby league team players
- Australia national rugby league team players
- NRL All Stars players
- Parramatta Eels players
- Wentworthville Magpies players
- Rugby league wingers
- Fijian expatriates in Australia
- I-Taukei Fijian people
- Sportspeople from Suva
- Living people
- Articles with dead external links from October 2015