Duncan Paia'aua (born 20 January 1995) is a professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

player who plays as a

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics * Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentri ...

for

Top 14 The Top 14 () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the French National Rugby League, also known by its French initialism o ...

club

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

. Born in New Zealand, he represents

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands ( Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands ( Manono and Apolima); ...

at international level.

Early life

Paia'aua was born in

Porirua, New Zealand Porirua, ( mi, Pari-ā-Rua) a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. The name 'Porirua' is a corruption of 'Pari-rua', meaning "the tide swee ...

but moved to Melbourne with his family at three years of age, and then settling in Rockhampton in 2002 playing junior league for Rockhampton Brothers. He played rugby at high school in Rockhampton and was twice selected for the Queensland Under 16 team. He was chosen in the under 20 Junior Wallabies and competed in the Junior World Cup in Italy, June 2015, scoring 5 points for Australia.

Club career

Paia'aua initially came through the Queensland Rugby Union's youth structures before switching to

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 11 ...

and linking up with the

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., commonly referred to as the Broncos, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos play in Australia's elite c ...

where he represented their under-20s in the National Youth Competition. However, in August 2014 it was announced that he had switched back to rugby union and signed a 2-year contract with the Queensland Reds ahead of the

2015 Super Rugby season The 2015 Super Rugby season was the 20th season of Super Rugby and the fifth season featuring an expanded 15-team format. For sponsorship reasons, this competition was known as Asteron Life Super Rugby in Australia, Investec Super Rugby in New ...

. He subsequently played 1 game for Queensland Country in the first ever

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 ...

, leading them to victory in 2018 and runner-up in 2019 as captain. He made his debut for the Queensland Reds in round 1, 2015 against the Brumbies in Canberra. His outstanding performance caught the eyes of major international recruiters. Paia'aua currently plays 10 or 12 at

RC Toulon R&C, RC, R/C, Rc, or rc may refer to: Science and technology Computing * rc, the default Command line interface in Version 10 Unix and Plan 9 from Bell Labs * .rc (for "run commands"), a filename extension for configuration files in UNIX-like ...

International career

On 28 October 2017, Paia'aua started for the Wallabies against the Barbarians at Allianz Stadium, Sydney. He represented Australia at the Wallabies v Barbarians game in 2017 where he scored 16 of the 31 points although it was not officially designated a test match. He finally made his international debut – for Samoa, his parents’ birthplace – against Italy in the 2022 end of year internationals. His second cap, against Georgia, ended in a red card for a dangerous tackle. He was suspended for four matches. He represented Samoa at the

2023 Rugby World Cup The 2023 Rugby World Cup is scheduled to be the tenth men's Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's rugby union teams. It is scheduled to take place in France from 8 September to 28 October 2023 in nine venues across the cou ...

scoring tries against Chile and Japan.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Paia'aua, Duncan 1995 births Australian rugby union players Australian rugby league players Australian sportspeople of Samoan descent Rugby union fly-halves Queensland Reds players Queensland Country (NRC team) players Sportspeople from Rockhampton Living people 2023 Rugby World Cup players RC Toulon players Australian expatriate rugby union players in France Samoa international rugby union players