Tiana Penitani

Tiana Penitani (born 12 January 1996) is an Australian rugby league footballer who plays for the St George Illawarra Dragons in the NRL Women's Premiership and the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in the NSWRL Women's Premiership.

Tiana Penitani
Personal information
Born (1996-01-12) 12 January 1996
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Height169 cm (5 ft 7 in)
Weight70 kg (11 st 0 lb)
Playing information
PositionCentre
Club
Years Team Pld T G FG P
2019– St George Illawarra 6 3 0 0 12
Representative
Years Team Pld T G FG P
2019 New South Wales 2 1 0 0 4
2019 Australia 9s 4 5 0 0 20
2019 Australia 1 0 0 0 0
As of 10 November 2020
Source: RLP
Medal record
Women's rugby sevens
Representing  Australia
Youth Olympic Games
2014 NanjingTeam competition

Primarily a centre, she is an Australia and New South Wales representative. She previously represented Australia in rugby sevens.

Background

Born in Canberra, Penitani played junior rugby league for La Perouse United before switching to rugby union and Oztag.[1] She is of Tongan descent.[2]

Playing career

Rugby union

In 2014, Penitani, along with Brooke Anderson, captained Australia to the Gold medal at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics, held in China. This was the first time Rugby Sevens had been part of the Olympic programme since 1924. The tournament was Penitani's first in 14 months, following a serious knee injury sustained at the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens. At 17 years and 163 days old, she became Australia's youngest ever representative in either 15s or 7s at a World Cup, when she represented Australia in Russia.[3][4][5]

In 2019, Penitani was on the award voting panels for both the World Rugby Men's Sevens Player of the Year and the World Rugby Women's Sevens Player of the Year.[6]

Rugby league

In 2019, Penitani returned to rugby league, joining the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks NSWRL Women's Premiership team.[7] In May 2019, she represented NSW City at the Women's National Championships.[8]

On 14 June 2019, she signed with the St George Illawarra Dragons NRL Women's Premiership team.[9]

On 21 June 2019, she made her debut for New South Wales, starting at centre in a 14–4 win over Queensland.[10]

In Round 1 of the 2019 NRL Women's season, Penitani made her debut for the Dragons in a 4–14 loss to the Brisbane Broncos.[11] On 6 October 2019, she started at centre in the Dragons' 6–30 Grand Final loss to the Broncos.[12]

In October 2019, she represented Australia at the 2019 Rugby League World Cup 9s, scoring five tries and finishing as the tournament's top try scorer.[13] On 25 October 2019, she made her Test debut for Australia in a 28–8 win over New Zealand.[14]

References
  1. "I know he's with me every day". Athlete's Voice. 21 June 2019.
  2. "'I know he's with me': Tiana Penitani's heartbreaking journey to fulfil Origin dream". Yahoo Sport. 21 June 2019.
  3. http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/rugby/tiana-penitani-17-will-be-the-youngest-person-to-represent-a-senior-australian-rugby-team/story-fn8t7efs-1226603818404
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 December 2015.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/city-east/tiana-penitani-and-raecene-mcgregor-selected-in-australian-youth-olympic-rugby-7s-teams/story-fngr8ice-1226935502797
  6. worldrugby.org. "World Rugby Awards Voting Panel". www.world.rugby. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  7. "Three Sharks in NSW Women's Blues". Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks. 8 June 2019.
  8. "Line-ups named for Women's National Championships". NRL. 22 May 2019.
  9. "Dragons announce first 2019 Women's Premiership signings". St George Illawarra Dragons. 14 June 2019.
  10. "Harvey Norman NSW Women's Origin team announced". NRL. 8 June 2019.
  11. "NRLW late mail: Round 1 v Broncos". St George Illawarra Dragons. 15 September 2019.
  12. "NRLW team announcement: Grand final v Broncos". St George Illawarra Dragons. 1 October 2019.
  13. "Dragons dozen named for Australia". St George Illawarra Dragons. 7 October 2019.
  14. "Jillaroos call up a shock for Penitani". NRL. 21 October 2019.
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