Jordan Uelese

Australia capped him when he had played 27 minutes of Super Rugby. Seven years later his club was abolished and he had to leave the country.

Jordan Uelese had played twenty-seven minutes of Super Rugby when Michael Cheika took him into the Wallabies squad in July 2017, openly as an apprentice, to learn from Stephen Moore and Tatafu Polota-Nau. Moore withdrew in September and the apprentice was capped against South Africa in Perth.

At 1.89m and 116kg he hooks for Montpellier, and he is 29.

Wellington is where he was born and where he started, at Oriental Rongotai, following his father and his brothers. The family moved to Melbourne when he was eleven. He played back row at Melbourne University before moving to hooker, which turned out to be the decision that made him a professional.

His first paid appearance came at eighteen for the Melbourne Rising. The Rebels signed him in 2017, the third player developed in Victoria to play for them, and he scored an international try in his second Test, against Argentina.

Then the knee went, against the Blues in 2018, and cost him eleven months. He came back through Shute Shield club rugby with Gordon in May 2019 and was at the World Cup in Japan by September, playing all five matches off the bench. Another World Cup followed in 2023, with one appearance against Fiji. Nineteen caps in total, only one of them a start, and two tries.

The Rebels were removed from Super Rugby after the 2024 season over their finances, which left him without a club rather than without a contract. A move to Montpellier followed, replacing his compatriot Brandon Paenga-Amosa, and he won the Challenge Cup in 2026.

A durable, low hooker whose Test career has been a long apprenticeship behind better-known names.