Kalifa Faifai-Loa

Kalifa Faifai-Loa is a retired player most recently playing for North Queensland Cowboys.

Kalifa Faifai Loa (born 29 January 1990) is a New Zealand professional rugby league footballer who currently plays for the St. George Illawarra Dragons in the National Rugby League. A New Zealand and Samoa national representative winger, he previously played for the North Queensland Cowboys and Gold Coast Titans.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Faifai Loa is of Samoan and M?ori descent and played his junior football for the Marist Saints in the Auckland Rugby League competition, before being signed by the Newcastle Knights. He played for the Knights' Toyota Cup team in 2008, scoring 7 tries in 10 games. The Knights sacked Faifai Loa at the end of the season after multiple disciplinary breaches. Faifai Loa said about the incident, "During my time at the Knights, some stuff happened, as it does when you're young, and I got kicked out of some homestays and that sort of thing, I also got done for drink-driving and obviously the Knights decided not to re-sign me. I remember being really homesick and I just drank and stuff like that."

Faifai Loa returned to New Zealand before signing a contract with the St. George Illawarra Dragons starting in 2009. As a 20-year-old, Faifai Loa scored 12 tries and broke near 100 tackles throughout the 2009 Toyota Cup season. In 2010 he averaged over 200 metres a game and scored 11 tries in 13 appearances. Altogether, he scored 29 tries in 45 games and being named in the 2010 National Youth Competition Team of the Year. In Round 11 of the 2010 NRL season he made his NRL debut for the Dragons against the Canberra Raiders. In his second NRL game, Faifai Loa scored 2 tries. At the end of 2010, it appeared that salary cap demands would force him out of the Dragons. Faifai Loa is cousins with fellow New Zealand international Jeremy Smith. Faifai Loa lived with Smith when they were playing for the St. George Illawarra Dragons.