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Melbourne Rebels sign another Wallaby in Filipo Daugunu
The Melbourne Rebels are delighted to reveal another exciting signing with Wallabies winger Filipo Daugunu committing to the Club.
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The electric international has penned a two-year deal and will become a Melbourne Rebel until at least the end of the 2025 season.
Daugunu signature further strengthens the Rebels 2024 playing squad following the recent signings of Victorian duo Jordan Uelese and Pone Fa’amausili, international stars Lukhan Salakaia-Loto and Darby Lancaster, and the incoming Taniela Tupou, who continues to go from strength to strength in preparation for this year’s Rugby World Cup in France.
Like Tupou, Daugunu’s impact will go far beyond just the rugby field, with the twenty-eight-year-old to be a valuable addition to the Rebels’ long-term Pasifika strategy, which looks to promote and celebrate Pasifika culture and tradition.
The exciting addition also aligns with the Rebels’ long-term TWI strategy, with Daugunu having played alongside Tupou, Alex Mafi, Sam Talakai and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto.
Melbourne Rebels Attack Coach, Tim Sampson, said the Club was thrilled to win Daugunu’s signature.
“It is important to recruit players who we think will suit our game model and Filipo is certainly a player who was of immediate interest to us,” said Sampson.
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“I have always admired his all-round skill set and without playing all games this season, he still managed some impressive individual stats, notably being in the top 20 for line breaks across the competition and also in the top 10 for breakdown steals”.
“We look forward to Filipo adding his class to our existing group of quality backs”.
After moving to Australia from Fiji in 2017, Daugunu burst onto the Super Rugby scene in 2018, scoring 37 points and six tries in his debut season.
Just two seasons later, the electrifying playmaker was selected for the Wallabies during their opening Bledisloe match against the All Blacks, scoring on debut.
Daugunu has since accumulated 7 Test Caps for Australia, scoring two tries, while also making 69 appearances for the Reds, scoring twenty-two tries for a total of 120 points over six years of Super Rugby action.
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Daugunu said he couldn’t wait to begin his Rebels career, and play in a system he believes will bring out the very best in him.
“Having played my entire professional career in Queensland, the time was right to experience something new and come to such a great city like Melbourne,” said Daugunu.
“Queensland have made me the player I am today and I will be forever grateful for that, but I am looking forward to this next chapter in my career and playing for the Melbourne Rebels.
“The Rebels have played an exciting brand of rugby this year and being able to add to that, and help build on what they’re already doing well, that’s exciting.”
Via Press Release/Melbourne Rebels
Comments on RugbyPass
I am really looking forward to Leigh Halfpenny playing his first Super rugby game for the Crusaders Playing a long side his former Welsh and Scarlets team mate Johnny McNicoll.Johnny has been playing great, back in a Crusaders jersey.The attack has strengthened big time. Also looking forward to David Havili at 10. David is a class act, it also allows Dallas McLeod to remain at 12. A good thing.
1 Go to commentsIf he had stopped insisting on playing in the backrow, instead of wing, where everyone told him he should, he would have been a Bok years ago….
11 Go to comments‘Salads don’t win scrums’ 😂 I love that.
19 Go to commentsCan’t wait for the article that talks about misogyny in Ireland. Somehow.
16 Go to commentsI would like to see a rule change, when the attacking team is held up over the try line, by allowing the defensive team to restart a goal line drop out releases the pressure for the defensive team, but what if the attacking team had to restart a tap 5m out from the defensive team it gives the attacking team to apply more pressure, there are endless options for the attacking side and it will keep the fans in suspence.
2 Go to commentsLess modern South African males predictably triggered.
16 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
84 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
2 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
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