Ayesha Leti-i’iga
Adam Julian looks over the prolific tryscoring feats of the ‘pocket rocket’ from Wellington.
The Blacks Ferns wing is a tryscoring sensation at club and provincial level.
The shy personality of Ayesha Leti-i’iga is at odds with her pyrotechnics on the field. The diminutive and dynamic winger is only 22, but she already holds the wellington Pride record for most tries in a career with 46 scored in 34 games (as of July 30).
In the last match of the 2019 Farah Palmer Cup, wellington was playing terribly, down 7-26 at halftime against winless Manawatu.
Coach ross bond, no amateur in delivering a serious tune-up, looked at a huddle of girls less than half his age and barked in exasperated fashion, “It’s simple, give it to Ayesha,” and promptly disappeared.
Five Ayesha tries later and wellington had won, with Leti-i’iga establishing another Pride record, most tries in a single match.
In 2009 her mother, Mary Asolupe, died at just 35 when she was struck by a vehicle, leaving then 11-year-old Ayesha to be raised by her grandparents Faaui and Salafa.
blessed with searing speed and deceptive strength, she didn’t play rugby until she was 16, introduced to the sport by former representative prop and Porirua College coach Fuamai Taumoli.
what happened? she scored a try with her first touch and repeated that feat on her provincial debut – a 34-0 victory over Manawatu in August 2015.
The emergence of Leti-i’iga coincided with the rise of her club, Oriental Rongotai. Ories have won 94 of their last 105 games, including the Tia Passi Memorial Trophy in 2014, 2017 and 2021.
Additionally, they’ve won the first round Rebecca Liua’ana Trophy four times.
In that period Leti-i’iga has scored 159 tries in 62 games. She has scored 30 hat-tricks and once collected a haul of eight tries in a single match against Avalon in 2020. She was the wellington women’s club player of the year in 2017 and 2018, scoring at least a single try in 15 consecutive games. In 2018 she crossed 41 times in 13 appearances.
This season she only played seven times but bettered the already startling strike rate with 27 tries in seven games. She’s scored at least once the last 14 times she’s played in club rugby.
In fact, only nine times has she failed to score a try for Ories. She’s scored more tries than any player in Wellington club finals for the past decade – including two in the unfamiliar position of fullback this year.
‘She has scored 30 hat-tricks (for Ories) and once collected a haul of eight tries in a single match against Avalon in 2020.’
A national call-up was inevitable and her black Ferns debut was in 2018 at the historic NFL stadium Soldier Field in Chicago. Coming off the bench against the usa, she was denied a try from a forward pass before crossing legitimately with the last play of the game in a resounding 67-6 success.
In 2019 she returned to the usa and in the opening match of the super series employed her power to wriggle over for the clincher in a tough 35-20 victory against Canada.
Australia would be the next victims of her tryscoring prowess. In the first Laurie O’reilly Trophy Test in Perth, Leti-i’iga applied the exclamation mark on an emphatic 47-10 win with a runaway from halfway.
It’s hard to single out the best try she’s ever scored, but the third in the 2019 Tia Passi Memorial club final for Ories against Norths, beating at least six players and sprinting 80 metres, is hard to rival. It turned an even contest into a 43-10 hiding.
grace brooker is a Canterbury and black Ferns midfield back familiar with the danger Leti-i’iga presents.
“She’s a pocket rocket. Oh God, if you’re a fullback and she breaks the line you can’t focus on her. Get down, hang on and hope,” Brooker says.
Leti-i’iga works fulltime for the Ministry of social Development.
we await more tryscoring feats for Ories, the Pride and the black Ferns from the remarkable Ayesha Leti-i’iga.