Nese Malifa
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Weight | 180 lb (82 kg) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Valenese Malifa (born 10 September 1985 in American Samoa) is an American rugby union fly-half. He is a member of the United States national rugby union team and participated with the squad at the 2007 Rugby World Cup.[1] Nese Malifa has played rugby since he was 17 years old. He played for Auckland and Samoa Rugby Clubs before moving to the U.S. to play for Belmont Shore. During his stint in the Pacific Islands, Malifa was a representative rugby player in Auckland in both the XV’s and Sevens game, as well as playing representative rugby in Samoa. Malifa’s talents were noticed by selectors while playing for Ponsonby and then the Eden Club in Auckland. Lesser known are Malifa’s talents in other sporting codes, as Malifa represented Samoa in Cricket. Malifa switched to his favored flyhalf position for the USA Hawks match against Canada West in the 2007 North America 4. He couldn’t have asked for a better start to his NA4 career, notching all of his teams points through two converted tries and two penalty goals from two attempts.
Playing rugby is all in the family for Nese - his father and three brothers also play the game. Valenese used to play premier Auckland club rugby for the Eden Eagles. It is considered that his twin brother Ata Malifa, was the better player at youth level. Their older brother Angelo, was the best fullback in the Eden club.