Petone: Willie Moala

Experience and cool heads will count for a lot over the next month as the business end of 2008 Wellington club rugby unfolds. As such, it's no surprise that Petone are well positioned on the Jubilee Cup points table heading into this weekend's penultimate round of regular season matches.

The Villagers have a clutch of players in their ranks that have played over a 100 Premier games, led by such players as Thomas Tupuivao, Chris Molenaar and Eugene Smith in the forwards and halfback Cam Incledon, August Collins and Lotu Filemu in the backs.

Also waiting out wide and always ready to seize on any opportunity that comes his way is winger Willie Moala, who will play his 99th Premier game for Petone on the last day of the season should his team reach this year's final at Westpac Stadium.

Dependable and with speed to burn, Moala is one of the surest finishers in Wellington Premier rugby and has been consistently cutting swathes through the best Premier defences for several seasons now.

Small in stature at 78 kgs but big in heart, Moala also has a safe pair of hands and a strong defensive game, and together with his aforementioned pace he is one of the players to watch over the next month of the Jubilee Cup.

Moala has been playing for the Petone Premiers since 2001, joining a Jubilee Cup winning side from the Petone Colts whom he had played for the year before after spending his last school year at St. Bernard's College in Lower Hutt. He won the Swindale Shield in 2004 and then won the Jubilee Cup himself in 2005, in the final chasing up a kick by second five-eighth Tumanu Martin and scoring a decisive second half try as Petone came back from a 20-6 deficit to beat Northern United 21-20.

Moala has played for several Wellington representative sides over the past several years, from the Wellington Secondary Schools to the Wellington Colts, and more recently for both Wellington B and the Wellington XV. In 2006 he joined Petone teammates Smith and prop Hoani Tui in the Wellington Development team's trip to Japan where they played against the Sanix Blues.

In 2006 he played for the Tongan Sevens team in the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. His 60-metre runaway match-winning try against South Africa in Tonga's opening pool game of that tournament rates as a career highlight, as was playing alongside Tana Umaga a number of times for Petone.