{"id":515472,"date":"2026-03-03T07:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T07:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515472\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T07:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T07:07:07","slug":"maiden-wallabies-cap-motivating-feliuai-to-lead-new-look-brumbies-backline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515472\/","title":{"rendered":"Maiden Wallabies cap motivating Feliuai to lead new-look Brumbies backline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-2425b0\">ACT Brumbies centre David Feliuai is hungry for an elusive Wallabies debut, with Saturday&#8217;s clash with the Queensland Reds providing the perfect audition stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Feliuai has emerged as a key piece of the Brumbies backline as they sit top of the Super Rugby Pacific ladder after three rounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stan.com.au\/watch\/sport\/rugby\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"css-tm001h\">Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">This has the former Rebel pushing his case for a return to the Wallabies squad, firmly in the spotlight this week as he prepares to face Hunter Paisami and the Reds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">The 28-year-old has been involved in past camps under Test coach Joe Schmidt, called into his first camp in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Feliuai would withdraw during the stint for personal reasons, and while he would miss selection for the 2025 season, his performance against the British &amp; Irish Lions for First Nations Pasifika has fueled the fight for a maiden Test appearance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cMy first couple of experiences in Wallabies camps was pretty huge,&#8221; he told Rugby.com.au at the start of the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">&#8220;You just come in with an open mindset and try to be a sponge, and you&#8217;re surrounded by players who have been there a while and who have that experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cAfter that Lions series, it gave me a massive boost in confidence in my game and I&#8217;m just trying to chip away at it and hopefully try and get back in the mix and try and get my first camp.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cThat was huge going into [First Nations] camp and obviously finding out who I was going up against [in the Lions]. I was really excited, but as an athlete, you try to treat it as another game and not get too over-hyped coming up against class players like [Owen] Farrell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Feliuai may have had a late start to his Super Rugby career, but he has emerged as one of the most experienced players in a youthful midfield group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">It comes after the departure of Len Ikitau overseas on a sabbatical, leaving the 34-capped centre to help the likes of Hudson Creighton, Kadin Pritchard and Jarrah McLeod learn the ropes, with the trio having six games of combined starting Super Rugby experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cIt&#8217;s been a massive loss, but also a big gain for us, especially the younger boys coming through to get a bit of experience,&#8221; Feliuai believes.&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cIt&#8217;s been good just to put my hand up and help out the younger boys. We&#8217;ve had a lot of talks between myself and a few of the boys coming up about things on the field and what I can help them with, but it&#8217;s been huge.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ACT Brumbies centre David Feliuai is hungry for an elusive Wallabies debut, with Saturday&#8217;s clash with the Queensland&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[58864,64,63,760,85,48013],"class_list":["post-515472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-act-brumbies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}