Simaima Taufa rugby league 'Female Player of the Year' [1]
Friday, September 29, 2017 - 17:30. Updated on Saturday, September 30, 2017 - 00:37.
Australian Rugby League player, Simaima Taufa (of Tongan descent), has won the prestigious Dally M Female Player of the Year. The 23-year-old picked up her award at the “Dally M awards”, an annual ceremony that honours the best Rugby League players in Australia.
Simaima has played for the “Jillaroos’”, Australia’s National Rugby league team since 2014. She plays for her local Sydney club, the Blacktown Workers, and is a regular select for the Women’s New South Wales (NSW) team.
According to an NRL press release, Taufa was a star player for the Jillaroos’, helping Australia to win the Auckland Nines Tournament and defeating New Zealand in this year’s ANZAC test.
In the press release, Jillaroos coach Brad Donald praised Taufa for her toughness. He described how Taufa played through injury at this year’s nines tournament without telling anyone.
“It doesn’t matter if she gets busted, she just keeps going”, he stated.
“She had a broken arm at the Nines and we didn’t know about it until we got it home,
“She didn’t play for six to eight weeks after that. We still don’t know if she did it in the first, second or third game (of the Nines) because she just didn’t let on. She finished that final game.”
“One of the things with players like her is she’s so quiet and just goes about her business so what she does on the field, it becomes an expectation.”
Taufa is expected to be a key player for Australia in the upcoming Rugby League World Cup which take place in November. The Jillaroos will play England and the Cook Islands in pool A of the tournament.