Sam Mataora (born 20 October 1990) is a Cook Island professional

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. He played for 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 ...

and

Newcastle Knights The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional rugby league team based in Newcastle, New South Wales that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, the Knights joined the top-tier competition in New ...

in the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

. His positions were and .

Background

Born in

Rarotonga, Cook Islands Rarotonga is the largest and most populous of the Cook Islands. The island is volcanic, with an area of , and is home to almost 75% of the country's population, with 10,898 of a total population of 15,040. The Parliament of the Cook Islands, Coo ...

, Mataora moved to

Brisbane, Australia 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 ...

when he was 11 years old and played his junior football for Souths Sunnybank while attending Cavendish State High School. He was then signed by the

Playing career

Early career

In 2009 and 2010, Mataora played for the Canberra Raiders' NYC team. In 2009, he played for the

Cook Islands The Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands whose total land area is approximately . The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers of ocean. Avarua is its ...

in 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 ...

2010

In Round 8 of the

2010 NRL season The 2010 NRL season was the 103rd season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the thirteenth run by the National Rugby League (NRL). The season commenced on 12 March and ended with the grand final, played on 3 ...

, Mataora made his

NRL The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

debut for the Raiders against the

New Zealand Warriors The Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as the Aucklan ...

. He played for the

Junior Kiwis The Junior Kiwis side represents New Zealand in the sport of rugby league. They are commonly known as the Junior Kiwis, after the native bird of that name. Since 2010, they are an under-20s side, with players selected from the NRL, Intrust Sup ...

that year and was named at second-row in the 2010 NYC Team of the Year.

2011

In 2011, Mataora was selected in the Cook Islands 18-man squad to face

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

at the end of the year, although the

NZRL The New Zealand Rugby League (NZRL) is the governing body for the sport of rugby league football in New Zealand. SPARC, 2009: 13 The NZRL was founded on 25 April 1910 in preparation for a tour of Great Britain that same year.Coffey and Wood '' ...

called off the match due to players being unavailable.

2012

In June 2012, Mataora re-signed with the Raiders on a 2-year contract.

2013

In 2013, Mataora played for the Cook Islands in the

2013 Rugby League World Cup The 2013 Rugby League World Cup was the fourteenth World Cup for men’s national rugby league teams. It took place between the 26 October and 30 November and was hosted by England and Wales (although some games were played in France and Ire ...

2014

In July 2014, Mataora joined the

mid-season for the remainder of the year. On 1 November 2014, he re-signed with the Knights on a 3-year contract.

2015

In Round 12 of the

2015 NRL season The 2015 NRL season was the 108th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 18th season of the National Rugby League in Australia and New Zealand. The season started in New Zealand with the annual Auckland Nines, which was followe ...

, Mataora made his Knights debut against the

. On 27 September, he played in the Knights' 2015 New South Wales Cup Grand Final victory over the

Wyong Roos The Wyong Rugby League Football Club are an Australian rugby league club based on the Central Coast (New South Wales), Central Coast of New South Wales. The club competed in the New South Wales Cup from 2013 to 2018 and still competes in the Cen ...

. On 17 October, he played for the

against

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

in their Asia-Pacific Qualifier match for the

2017 Rugby League World Cup The 2017 Rugby League World Cup was the fifteenth staging of the Rugby League World Cup tournament and took place in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea between 27 October and 2 December 2017. The tournament featured the national teams ...

2016

Mataora experience a breakout year in 2016, playing in 20 matches for the Knights and scoring 2 tries.

2017

Due to injuries and fitness, Mataora only played 1 match for the Knights NRL side in 2017. He retired from the game in July after struggling to cope with depression.

Statistics

References

External links

Newcastle Knights profileNRL profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mataora, Sam 1990 births Cook Island rugby league players Cook Island emigrants to Australia Cook Islands national rugby league team players Canberra Raiders players Newcastle Knights players Mount Pritchard Mounties players Souths Logan Magpies players Junior Kiwis players Rugby league props Rugby league second-rows Living people Australian rugby league players Rugby league players from Brisbane Sportsmen from Queensland 21st-century Australian sportsmen