ROCHDALE HORNETS picked up more than a highly-experienced and powerful outside back when they signed Junior Sa’u ahead of the 2026 season.
According to Chairman Andy Mazey, the former NRL and Super League player, who moved across the Pennines after four years at Keighley, is also a driver of standards on the training field and the pitch as well as a role model for his younger teammates.
Those qualities contributed to Hornets’ decision to keep hold of the Auckland-born former New Zealand and Samoa international who will turn 40 during the 2027 campaign.
Sa’u was 21 when he made his NRL debut with Newcastle Knights back in 2008 after previously being in the system of Canberra Raiders, who spotted him playing for Logan Brothers in the Brisbane competition (the family had moved to the city when he was eight).
He also had a handful of matches for Melbourne Storm, taking his total NRL tally to 92, and played nine times (with eight tries) for New Zealand and twice for Samoa (both at the 2013 World Cup) when he signed for the old Salford ahead of the 2014 Super League season.
Sa’u featured in the dramatic 2016 Million Pound Game which the Red Devils won 19-18 on golden point to stay in the top flight and relegate hosts Hull KR, and after a loan stint at Wakefield, left for Leigh during the 2019 campaign, having scored 59 tries in 142 Salford outings.
With Keighley, whom he joined after a spell playing for American rugby union team Old Glory, his figures were 28 in 56.
Tries have been harder to come by with Rochdale, but he pointed out: “It was our first campaign in the Championship (after League One). We’re only heading in one direction.”
