Irae Simone

In 2016 Irae Simone was promoted into the South Sydney Rabbitohs’ senior squad and named for the Auckland Nines. He left the club instead, and left rugby league altogether. He has since said openly that he was depressed, worn down by a run of injuries, by being moved between positions constantly, and by getting almost no feedback on how he was playing.

Note on his current club: Simone is still listed in Clermont‘s squad data. He was not retained after 2025-26 and signed for NEC Green Rockets Tokatsu in Japan’s second division.

Centre, 1.93m and 105kg. He went to school in New Zealand and played in the same school midfield as Jack Goodhue, who became an All Black, and represented New Zealand schools at league before he moved to Australia at eighteen.

The comeback was fast. He joined Northern Suburbs in the Shute Shield in 2016, played 21 games at centre, and the club won the competition for the first time in 41 years. He was voted its best newcomer. The Sydney Rays took him for the 2016 National Rugby Championship, where eight games and four tries made him the competition’s player of the year.

The Waratahs signed him to replace Kurtley Beale, and he started the first four matches of 2017 before losing the shirt. When Beale came back in 2018 he did not play at all, and was released.

Canberra rebuilt him. He signed for the Brumbies for 2019, took the No. 12 shirt almost immediately, and won Super Rugby AU with them in 2020, beating the Reds in the final. Dave Rennie capped him against New Zealand in Sydney on 31 October 2020. He has three caps.

Clermont brought him in for 2022-23 to replace Tani Vili and the retiring Wesley Fofana, which is a lot to put on one signing. Christophe Urios made him club captain before the 2023-24 season.

He carries hard, he defends the 13 channel well, and he has had the kind of career that makes the word resilience mean something specific rather than nothing.