Salesi Rayasi went from high school basketball star to 50 Hurricanes' caps

Salesi Rayasi is truely unique and gifted talent.

In 2014 he was studying at St Patrick’s College, Silverstream and in one Friday night he played for Premier basketball team in a match against Wellington College and got 38 points to make win impressive. The following day he managed to get four tries for the First XV and this was during the match against National champions Scots College that ended in 28-26.

He has good stats playing for the NPC for Auckland, 40 tries for 52 games, and he was nominated for NPC Player of the Year in 2020. He scored 14 tried in 9 matches during that season that made him the record holder of tries.

Rayasi get his first treble for the Hurricanes on his 50 th game fixture against the Highlanders. The Hurricanes, therefore, triumphed 41-14 to extend their football duel series to 42 where out of the 27 wins.

Rayasi is the 63 rd player to have played in 50 games for the Hurricanes. He played his first match against the chiefs at Wellington in 2019 and he even got a try at this time; the final score being 47-19. Out of total of 50 games played, he has been a starter in 31 games while coming of the bench in 19 games. He has been able to win the game 32 times.

Out of the three goals, Rayasi has scored three in a match for the second time. During the year he managed to touch down three times and all those came on April 29, 2022 during the Hurricanes 33-32 victory over the Blues in Dunedin.

The Hurricanes trailed 32-14 with ten for the game to play and chose the win with a last play try to Ardie Savea carrying 40m down the right wing. A single loss in that stretch was the worst defeat in franchise history, but the Blues secured a franchise-record 15 straight victories after that shifting event.

Rayasi has managed to score two tries in a match for the team seven other time, including a two tried match against the Highlander in the April, 2023 season which the team emerged victor with 29-14. All in all, he has made thirty trips to the tryline in total for the Hurricanes with eight of those being this season.

After featuring mostly on the bench throughout the year or 2024, Rayasi has qualified for a starting role for the Hurricane ‘s Super Rugby Pacific quarter-final match against Melbourne Rebels.

“Fifty games is a great honour for me,” Rayasi told RugbyPass.

Some memorable games that I have personally seen involve the chiefs winning the recent couple of weeks ago and beating the Lions in 2019. We rarely defeated the Chiefs in Hamilton, let alone, dominating the game the way we did against the giants in a full house.

“Yeah, it got to a hilarious level in the 2019 Lions series when Beauden Barrett fell sick the day of the match after the All Blacks had lost three players.

“In Johannesburg about powered them with 37-17. Two players, Ben Lam and Dane Coles managed to register two tries. Timothy Le Roux said, The boys showed huge character. The Lions had been in the two final games.

The Hurricanes have an ambition that they are going to take part in the fourth final of the Super Rugby competition. As suggest by the regular season table statistics, having been able to win as many as twelve of the fourteen matches means that has a great likelihood of emerging victorious. Since their debut in the Sky Stadium the Hurricanes have clinched 107 of the 152 fixtures within the arena, an impressive eight successive triumphs.

“A big home crowd does help. Nobody can argue with that because you draw energy and momentum from the number of people in a stadium,” Rayasi said.

“Navigating at Sky Stadium the wind cannot be ignored and seems to possess its own personality. Knowing how to harness that wind is going to affect that outcome and because they play there more often than any one else that gives them an advantage as well.

Even the supporters of the Blues least estimated for the boys to finish first when the Blues were leading the Chiefs 31-7.

As for my inside word, the last try saving a bonus point was scored by Josh Ioane while I was in the car with Brayden Iose. Finally the situation became unbearable We had to get out of the car and stop. Group was active.

“I only played with Josh Ioane once. He is a good man – well, a character who has got a good funny bone and I need to take him for a beer. ”

The son of South African Rayasi played for the Hurricanes and participated in the win of the team over the Rebels in the match which took place on 22 of March at the Palmerston North with a total score of 54-26.

Still, that was a noteworthy performance; he has only appeared for 403 minutes in this season. For example, match play wingers Kini Naholo and Josh Moorby performed 823 and 881 mins respectively, which are double of much time than Elliot Daley.

Ess: The rivalry made among the outside backs was immense. Josh and Kini are amazing and the other would have to be Ruben Love I guess. When has Daniel Sinkinson played, he has been great, Harry Godfrey has Lowe his moments.

Although having known him at the All Blacks Sevens in 2018 where he was my coach, Clark Laidlaw was among the most successful coaches. He kicked-started my career professionally In other words, I owe my early professional affiliation to him.

“Clark fosters an atmosphere a high amount of interdependence among each individual, and personal success is vital for one another. A readiness to perform personal best, along with being responsible for one’s work brings a healthy competitiveness. ”

New South Wales has enjoyed a rich head-to-head record against the Rebels with Hurricanes having been on the winning side in eleven of the twelve encounters.

Notably though, the Highlanders also had Tevita Mafileo who also featured his 50th match in Super Rugby. He began his professional rugby career with the Chiefs in the year 2019 where he only played 7 matches for the team before transferring to the Hurricanes in year 2020. This was the 43rd time that he represented his new team at the fringes of the franchise. In fact, he has only made one single try in his entire playing period and this was when playing for the Hurricanes. It has been as follows, there have been four times where two Hurricanes have appeared in their 50th combined match.

2010: John Schwalger & Conrad Smith v Force at Wellington in 2010, 47-22
2013: Dane Coles & Victor Vito v Crusaders at Wellington, 29-28
2014: James Broadhurst & Julian Savea v Waratahs at Sydney, 30-39
2019: Vaea Fifita & Ricky Riccitelli v Highlanders at Dunedin, 31-28