{"id":261271,"date":"2026-01-31T17:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T17:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/261271\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T17:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T17:12:20","slug":"drua-half-back-fines-leleiwasa-shows-class-in-drua-47-31-loss-to-chiefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/261271\/","title":{"rendered":"Drua half-back Fines Leleiwasa shows class in Drua 47-31 loss to Chiefs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Wallabies half-back Fines Leleiwasa showed class and strong game awareness during his first-half appearance for the Drua, despite their 47\u201331 loss to the Chiefs in their pre-season match in New Zealand this afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Leleiwasa remained composed throughout, effectively dictating play and controlling the tempo from the opening whistle.<\/p>\n<p>The Chiefs dominated the breakdown and enjoyed the bulk of possession, converting their opportunities to take a 33\u201321 lead into halftime.<\/p>\n<p>Both sides showed flashes of quality rugby in the second half as coaches introduced new players to test combinations. <\/p>\n<p>However, the Chiefs proved too strong, controlling most of the contest.<\/p>\n<p>Both teams added to their scores after the break, with the Chiefs running out 47\u201331 winners in what was a solid pre-season hit-out ahead of the new campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Wallabies half-back Fines Leleiwasa showed class and strong game awareness during his first-half appearance for the Drua,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[149871,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-261271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-fijian-drua-super-rugby","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}