Elijah Salesa-Leaumoana became the eighth Kiwi-NRL debutant of 2025 after coming off the bench for Newcastle Knights in their win over Manly Sea Eagles. The Mangere East junior played 24 minutes stretching either side of half time and despite primarily being an edge forward, Salesa-Leaumoana rolled through the middle in his debut.

He finished with 6 runs - 50m @ 8.3m/run, 14 tackles @ 87.5% in what looked like a whirlwind of a debut. The game in general was crazy as Knights came back from being 0-16 down at half time and Salesa-Leaumoana was caught in the cycle of middle forward mahi for most of his debut. The fatigue of a new role on debut led to a few lapses but Salesa-Leaumoana performed admirably and showed that he can do a job as a versatile bench player this season.

Since leaving Auckland to join Knights, Salesa-Leaumoana has played nearly all of his SG Ball Cup, Jersey Flegg Cup and NSW Cup games as an edge forward. This season he formed an enticing edge forward duo with Papatoetoe junior Francis Manuleleua and coach Adam O'Brien chose Salesa-Leaumoana to make his NRL debut through the middle ahead of another 2025 Kiwi-NRL debutant Tyrone Thompson.

Thompson was starting prop in the NSW Cup game on Thursday night so coach O'Brien must have appreciated Salesa-Leaumoana's development and/or preferred the more mobile forward on the bench. The Knights NSW Cup team that lost to Sea Eagles also had Sosaia Latu (Mangere East) and Haami Loza (Mangere East/Otara), both of whom have already progressed from Under 19s to reserve grade this year.

All of which falls under the umbrella of Knights loving Aotearoa. They added one Thompson twin to bolster the middle forward depth before the other twin Leo moves to Bulldogs and also signed Manuleleua from Panthers ahead of this season. Knights made another mid-season move with Ryder Williams (Marist) popping up in their Jersey Flegg Cup team after he left Titans, while Cullen Gray (Hikurangi) was another intriguing addition to the Knights system.

The Knights U21s team has featured Loza, Williams and Gray either as their fullback/halves or two halves and one on the bench. During the SG Ball Cup campaign, Loza was joined by Ryder Crosswell (Dannevirke) in the halves a few times. This means that Knights have four young halves from Aotearoa in their system.

They have a bunch of Kiwi-NRL forwards as well. Tamakaimoana Whareaorere, Bailey Carmichael (Te Puke), Te Kaio Cranwell (Linwood), Jayden Harris (Hikurangi), Xavier Lynch (Halswell), Ezekiel Faga-Ieti (Hornby) and Austyn Ah Toon-Hotene (Papatoetoe) are sprinkled across the Knights U17 to U21 teams this year.

Jarome Falemoe (Otahuhu) was part of that mix but he made a mid-season move back to NZ Warriors earlier this year. Falemoe moved to Newcastle with Salesa-Leaumoana after they finished up at Southern Cross Campus, where they were shining alongside Leka Halasima (Mangere East).

All three featured in junior NZW fixtures during the pandemic era. The funkiest of which was the NZW Sevens team in 2022 who took part in the World Schools Sevens tournament where they played against Manuleleua who was part of the Condor Sevens team.

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Peace and love.