Asafo Aumua: the Naenae hooker who was an All Black before he was a Hurricane

When the All Blacks reserves warm up on the touchline at Murrayfield this weekend, the man in the No 16 jersey will be a hooker from Naenae who was an All Black before he had played a single game of Super Rugby. Asafo Aumua, 29, has 27 Tests, a hat-trick in a world final, a try in the NPC final that ended Wellington's 22-year wait and a starting place in the Hurricanes side that won the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific title. His path has also been interrupted, more than once, by injury. This is the story of how he got here.

Naenae and Silverstream

Aumua was born in Lower Hutt on 5 May 1997 and grew up in Naenae, according to the NZ Rugby Museum's profile on stats.allblacks.com. He is of Samoan descent, and the Hurricanes' profile says he started playing at the age of four for Hutt Old Boys Marist. As a boy he lived across the road from Alex Fidow, the prop who would later pack down beside him for Wellington. He went to Rata Street School and Naenae Intermediate before moving on to St Patrick's College, Silverstream.

He made the Silverstream First XV at 15 and stayed there for three seasons. Mostly he played hooker, but Wikipedia records that he also turned out at second five-eighth, prop and No 8. The school went through the round robin of the Wellington premiership unbeaten in two straight years, though the trophies did not follow. "We lost three finals by three points, but I enjoyed the brotherhood," he told Adam Julian of Club Rugby in 2017. His favourite school game, he said, was against Wellington College in 2013, when he came on at half-time as a Year 11 to mark Leni Apisai and Silverstream won 25-11.

Sevens suited him too. Silverstream won two Wellington secondary schools sevens titles in his time, and in 2015 he scored four tries in the final of the Marist sevens, was named player of the tournament and won a trip to Samoa, which he called his homeland. He was offered a chance to play sevens at a higher level but chose fifteens.

His last year at school brought national honours. He was picked in the New Zealand Secondary Schools team for a three-match series in Australia in 2015, and that side beat the Australian Schoolboys 32-8, by Club Rugby's account the biggest New Zealand win in the fixture for 20 years.

Age grade: a hat-trick in a world final

Aumua went to two World Rugby Under 20 Championships. The first, in Manchester in 2016, ended with New Zealand fifth. The second, in Georgia in 2017, was a different story. He scored against Scotland in pool play, again in the 39-26 semi-final win over France, and then, in the final against England at the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium in Tbilisi on 18 June 2017, he scored three times as New Zealand won 64-17, a record score for a final. The Hurricanes' profile says he is only the second player to score a hat-trick in an Under 20 final. Among his team-mates that night were Luke Jacobson, Dalton Papalii and Isaia Walker-Leawere, with Will Jordan and Caleb Clarke also in the squad.

Asked what had changed from the year before, he pointed to the group. "There were no groups in this team," he told Club Rugby. His two seasons in the Under 20 jersey brought seven tries.

Wellington

Aumua's first game for Wellington came in 2016, at 19, off the bench against Hawke's Bay at McLean Park. He started only two games that season but still finished as the Lions' leading try-scorer with six. His first start brought three tries in a 29-21 win over Northland. According to Club Rugby, that made him the first Wellington hooker, and only the fourth hooker in the top division's history after Hika Reid, Jesse Ranui and Francis Smith, to score an NPC hat-trick. He was modest about it. "All I had to do was fall over the line," he said.

By 2017 he was a regular. Wikipedia records three tries in his first three games of that Mitre 10 Cup, including a 60-metre run in which he beat George Bridge, and seven for the season, level with Fidow in fourth place on the competition's try-scoring list.

Five years later came a title. On 22 October 2022 Wellington beat Canterbury 26-18 in the final in Christchurch to win the NPC for the first time since 2000, after losing six finals in between. With Xavier Numia beside him at loosehead, Aumua tidied the lineout ball early in the move that sent Ruben Love over for the first try. Five minutes before half-time, at the end of a 10-phase drive, he went through the middle of a ruck by the posts to put Wellington back in front, according to Lynn McConnell's report on allblacks.com. Wellington held on, and took the title home alongside the Ranfurly Shield.

An All Black before he was a Hurricane

In August 2017, with talk building that he might be picked for the end-of-year tour, Aumua tried to play it down. "It's all hype. I haven't heard from the All Black selectors," he told Club Rugby. He added that he did not like cameras and microphones.

The selectors called anyway. Aumua was named for the 2017 northern tour having never played Super Rugby, a leap Stuff's Hamish Bidwell described at the time as rare for a 20-year-old. He became All Black No 1163. On tour he came off the bench for Nathan Harris against the Barbarians in London, where Wikipedia records a try ruled out for a forward pass in a 31-22 win, and again against a French XV in Lyon, won 28-23. Neither match was a Test, so his Test debut had to wait.

Those who had coached him were not surprised. Rob Ackerman, a former British and Irish Lions international and one of his early coaches, told Club Rugby that "surrender is a word that doesn't exist in his vocabulary", and recalled him training until he was physically sick rather than give up.

The Hurricanes

The step up to professional rugby took some adjusting. The Hurricanes left him out of their first two games of 2018 because, as the NZ Herald reported, he had not come back from the summer in the condition they expected, and he also had a niggling rib injury. Assistant coach Jason Holland said there was "nothing around lack of effort" and that he would soon be "absolutely flying".

He made his Super Rugby debut off the bench against the Crusaders on 10 March 2018, a 29-19 win, as Hurricane No 247. Four games in, a fractured wrist against the Sharks ended his season, Wikipedia records. In 2019, with Dane Coles injured, he started most of the Hurricanes' games, and in 2020 he scored their only try in a 25-25 draw with the Crusaders in Super Rugby Aotearoa.

When Dane Coles retired from Super Rugby, the Hurricanes said Aumua would take on a lot more responsibility in 2024. In April 2024 an MCL tear in his left knee, suffered against the Fijian Drua, cost him six to eight weeks, but he came back in time for the All Blacks. By 2025 head coach Clark Laidlaw had made him one of the club's captains. "He's also maturing into a good leader," Laidlaw said in March 2025, when Aumua re-signed with the Hurricanes and New Zealand Rugby until the end of 2027. "It's pretty special playing with my brothers and playing for my city," Aumua said.

Then came 2026. Aumua returned from a long lay-off in pre-season ("He's good to go, he's unreal," Laidlaw told Stuff in February) and was part of a Hurricanes side that finished top, became the first team in Super Rugby history to score more than 100 tries in a season, and met the Chiefs in the final in Wellington on 20 June. Aumua started at hooker, with Numia and Pasilio Tosi beside him, and played 66 minutes. The Hurricanes won 60-5, the biggest winning margin in a Super Rugby final, for their first title since 2016.

Test rugby at last

Wikipedia records that Aumua was recalled to the All Blacks squad in 2018 and again in 2019 without getting on the field in a Test. His debut finally came under Ian Foster in Brisbane on 7 November 2020, off the bench against Australia, three years after his first All Blacks tour. The All Blacks lost 24-22. Will Jordan, Akira Ioane and Cullen Grace also made their Test debuts that night.

His first Test start came on 12 September 2021 against Argentina at Robina, on the Gold Coast, a 39-0 win. He started again in the 104-14 win over the United States in Washington, and on 6 November 2021 in Rome he came off the bench to score twice in a 47-9 win over Italy, still his highest points tally in a Test.

Then he dropped out of the Test picture. Through 2022 and 2023 the hooking jerseys went to Codie Taylor, Samisoni Taukei'aho and Dane Coles, and Aumua did not play a Test in either year.

2024: every Test

Scott Robertson's first season in charge changed that. In 2024 the All Blacks played 14 Tests and Aumua played in all of them, one of only three players to do so, with Damian McKenzie and Anton Lienert-Brown: 11 off the bench and three starts, against Fiji in San Diego (47-5), Japan in Yokohama (64-19) and Ireland in Dublin, where the All Blacks won 23-13. Laidlaw later said 2024 showed how good Aumua could be once he had "consistency of game time and preparation".

2025 went the other way. A hamstring injury and a concussion meant he played no Tests at all that year, and he missed the northern tour, according to Planet Rugby.

Rennie's era

Dave Rennie took over the All Blacks in 2026, and Aumua was back in the 23 from the first Test of the Nations Championship, coming off the bench in the 34-32 win over France in Christchurch. Against Ireland at Eden Park on 18 July, he came on in the first half and, after Ardie Savea had carried close to the line, got the ball down on the line to give the All Blacks a 28-7 lead at the break. They won 40-21.

He went on the South Africa tour, played in the tour wins over the Stormers in Cape Town and the Sharks in Durban, came off the bench in the first two Tests and started the third at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, which the Springboks won 29-24. He was on the bench again in Baltimore and for the 50-19 Bledisloe Cup win at Eden Park, but failed a head injury assessment after that match and was ruled out of the Sydney Test, Reuters reported.

When Rennie named his squad for the northern tour on 27 October, Aumua was listed among eight players returning from injury.

Style and standing

The Museum lists Aumua at 177cm and 108kg. The Hurricanes call him "brutal" and "rampaging" with the ball, and in pre-season in 2024 he bench-pressed 195kg, a club record. His coaches have each spoken about a different side of him: Ackerman about surrender, Holland about effort, Laidlaw about leadership.

Most of his Test rugby has come from the bench: 21 of his 27 Tests, with 18 wins in all. Off the field, he told Club Rugby in 2017 that he had been working at the Rata Street after-school care centre, and that the children sent him a video before the Under 20 final. "It nearly made me cry," he said.

Where he is now

Aumua is on the bench at No 16 for the Test against Scotland at Murrayfield on Sunday morning NZ time (Saturday 7 November in Edinburgh), behind captain Codie Taylor, with George Bell also in the touring party. Wales in Cardiff and England at Twickenham follow, then the Nations Championship finals weekend in London. He is contracted to the Hurricanes and New Zealand Rugby until the end of 2027, the year of the next World Cup.

Career at a glance

Test figures are from RUGBE's match-by-match All Blacks data to 17 October 2026.