Paul Rauhihi

Paul Rauhihi (born 3 July 1973 in Porirua, New Zealand) is a retired professional rugby league footballer who represented his country. Rauhihi played in both the National Rugby League and Super League at prop forward.

New Zealand Career

Rauhihi's junior clubs were the Cottingham Tigers and St George club in Wellington. He then joined the New Zealand Navy and played for the Northcote Tigers and North Harbour Sea Eagles before becoming an Auckland Warriors junior in 1994. Rauhihi was part of the Northcote side that won the Fox Memorial in 1994. After leaving the Navy to concentrate on his rugby league career, Rauhihi played in 17 reserve grade games for the Warriors in 1996 and was a part of the Reserve Grade side that lost the 1997 grand final.

In 1998 he played for Taranaki before signing with the Melbourne Storm.

Australian career

Rauhihi then signed with the Newcastle Knights in 1999. He made his first grade debut against Wests at EnergyAustralia Stadium on 27 June.

He later moved to the Bulldogs.

Rauhihi then moved to the North Queensland Cowboys, winning the club's player of the year award in 2003. He also captained the side due to regular captain Paul Bowman being out with injury in 2004, and also when Travis Norton was out due to injury in 2005. He played at prop forward in the 2005 NRL Grand Final, the Cowboys' first, which they lost to the Wests Tigers.

English career

Rauhihi moved to England after the 2005 grand final loss, joining the Warrington Wolves where he was given the number 10 jersey. In 2009, after a number of seasons plagued by back injury, Rauhihi retired.

In 1996 Rauhihi played for the New Zealand Māori side that toured PNG and then competed in the Pacific Challenge Series. In 2000 he was part of the side in the World Cup.

Between 2002 and 2005 he played in seventeen matches for the New Zealand Kiwis, including captaining the side in the 2004 Tr-nations series due to an injury to Ruben Wiki. He was also part of the 2005 Tri Nations squad that won the competition.