Watch every second of the Wallaroos 2026 season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nMoleka has emerged as one of the most experienced halves in the squad, with the uncapped Piper Simons and Nicole Ledington added for the Fijiana Test and Pacific Four series.<\/p>\n
It comes after the departure of Trilleen Pomare (retirement), Tia Hinds (Sevens) and Arabella McKenzie (rugby league), with the Brumby eager to see the new faces get their chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s refreshing,” she told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve had a very experienced backline previously with G-Fred [Georgina Friedrichs], C [Ceilia] Smith, Trilleen [Pomare], who’s retired now, and so that’s given an opportunity for some of the youngest to come through, and they bring a lot of speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got what Millie Whittaker on the wing, she’s fiery, she’s quick, we’ve got Brooke [Brooklyn Teki-Joyce] from Force as well. Everything’s so refreshing and it adds a new spark in our backline, and so much talent there that hasn’t been touched<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s pretty cool and pretty keen to tap into that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moleka singled out praise for Queenslander and Sevens convert Sidney Taylor, who will press for a spot in the centres along with Ella Ryan, who shifts from the halves.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe’s quick, man. I’m her inside, and I don’t think I can keep up half the time, so I’m excited to see her,” Moleka said of Taylor.<\/p>\n
The match against Fijiana is their first game since last year’s World Cup campaign in England.<\/p>\n
This will be followed by the Pacific Four series in the USA next month, while a match against the Red Roses has been locked in to kick off the WXV Global Series later in the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery keen to start off at the top level [of performance],” Moleka added.<\/p>\n
“As we go through this first game,
I think it’s just the focus on looking internally and getting our systems right, our connections, and everything on and off the field. I think it will challenge us but I think we’re up for the challenge in terms of gelling out as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallaroos flyhalf Faitala Moleka believes the new faces can add a new edge to the team as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,19259],"class_list":["post-560042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-wallaroos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560042","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=560042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}