Esi Komaisavai and Harmony Kautai win Best & Fairest competitions

With some 50 tries between them in 2025, Esi Komaisavai  and Harmony Kautai were worthy winners of the club rugby Best & Fairest competitions this year.

• By Scott MacLean & Steven White

The winners of the two big individual club awards from Monday night’s Wellington Rugby awards were Paremata-Plimmerton’s Esi Komaisavai who took home the men’s Billy Wallace Trophy and Petone’s Harmony Kautai who claimed the women’s Erin Rush Trophy.

Komaisavai tallied an impressive 25 points across the season, allocated on a 3-2-1 basis by the referees from the Wellington Rugby Referees Association. Starting each of the Hammerheads’ 16 matches at halfback, the diminutive Fijian took home points from 12 of those contests and was considered the Man of the Match on five occasions. He adds this to the Swindale try-scoring record he claimed this season with 19 in the thirteen matches, and this follows finishing eighth and fourth in the past two seasons.

“it’s a privilege to win this award but it is just as much a reflection of my teammates as it is of me, Komaisavai said the morning after on Tuesday.

“I really enjoyed the season. Our pack consistently supplied good ball which allowed me to express myself.

“We were gutted not to go all the way. The margins are small in the Jubilee Cup and Hutt were worthy winners. We’ll be back next year fighting hard to win the title.”

Komaisavai finished eight points clear of Petone flanker Braith Ingram, who was the leader late in the Swindale but could only manage one point from there while his rival scored nine in the closing weeks. Wainuiomata’s Andrew Wells, a leader in the early weeks, and Upper Hutt’s Ieti Campbell tied for third.

Komaisavai is the second player from Pare-Plim to win the award, and first to do so outright after recent teammate Sam Clarke shared it with MSP’s Milan Kriletich last year. Neither of that pair played in Wellington this year with Clarke having moved to Taranaki and joined Tukapa, while Kriletich was turning out for Pukekohe in Counties-Manukau.

Professional and national representative commitments limited the involvements of 2023 winner Stanley Solomon and 2022’s Callum Harkin. 2017 joint-winner Hemi Fermanis remains a regular for Tawa (and now an elected local representative)  and tallied nine points with seven of those coming in the final weeks, while 2016 winner Peni Tokakece is also still playing, albeit now highly-grizzled member of Tawa’s Premier 2 side.

The Billy Wallace Award dates back to 1966 with Athletic’s All Black flanker Tom Lister the inaugural winner.

Komaisavai becomes the seventh individual halfback winner of this award and the 10th occasion overall that a halfback has won. The most recent was Tawa’s Kemara Hauiti-Parapara in 2021.

The 2019 Jubilee Cup previously winner enjoyed a stellar spell at Northern United, where he played 58 games for 39 wins and scored 22 tries.

He subsequently made his Wellington Lions debut in the just completed NPC. In seven games played he scored three tries, all scored in three losses to Otago (41-46), Hawkes Bay (19-45), and Northland (26-43), and he played in all three wins – against Waikato (35-24), Auckland (36-17) and Southland (75-19).

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Harmony Kautai becomes the third-successive Villager to win the Women’s Erin Rush Trophy, largely on the back of season that saw her score a remarkable 30 tries in just nine matches for Petone. In contrast to the men’s competition however, it was a closely fought battle with Wainuiomata’s Zoe Clark, who was bidding to become only the second prop after Athletic’s Huia Hutton in 1970 to win these awards. Kautai tallied 19 points including the maximum on five occasions, as did Clark who finished a solitary point adrift.

Sharing third on eleven points were Norths’ teenaged fullback Brooke Jones, and Paremata-Plimmerton No.8 Mele Kupa-Cummings.

Last year’s winner Keira Su’a-Smith finished ninth with seven points, including the three from her sides Tia Paasi Memorial win.

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The last ten winners of the Billy Wallace Best & Fairest competition have been:

• 2016: Peniasi Tokakece (Tawa)
• 2017: Ben Tupuola (Wainuiomata) / Hemi Fermanis (Tawa)
• 2018: Greg Foe (Poneke)
• 2019: Kemara Hauiti-Parapara (Tawa)
• 2020: Sam Reid (OBU) and Bruce Kauika-Petersen (Norths)
• 2021: Kemara Hauiti-Parapara (Tawa)
• 2022: Callum Harkin (Old Boys University)
• 2023: Stanley Solomon (Petone)
• 2024: Sam Clarke (Paremata-Plimmerton) and Milan Kriletich (Marist St Pat’s)
• 2025: Esi Komaisavai (Paremata-Plimmerton

The first five winners of the Erin Rush Cup have been:

• 2021: Thamsyn Newton (Paremata-Plimmerton)
• 2022: Thamsyn Newton (Marist St Pat’s) and Kaia Pollock (Paremata-Plimmerton)
• 2023: Justine McGregor (Petone)
• 2024: Keira Su’a-Smith (Petone)
• 2025: Harmony Kautai (Petone)

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History of the Best & Fairest competition

In 2016 we did a series celebrating the Best & Fairest winners from its inception in 1966 up to the early 2000s.

View the start of this series at: http://www.clubrugby.co.nz/wellington/story.php?id=1791

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WRFU COMMUNITY AWARD WINNERS

A full list of awards winners for 2025 is below: