Kadince "K" Christensen is a New Zealandrugby player and swimmer. He is only the person to represent New Zealand in rugby league and swimming at the young age of 15. Christensen made his professional rugby league debut for the Parramatta Eels during the 2012 National Rugby League season. In 2015 he left the Eels mid-season to join management of other rugby institutions for junior coaching and development.
Early life
Christensen was born in Cape Reinga, New Zealand, the son of Eric and Jaydene. His father and mother is of European New Zealander lineage, including English, Scottish. Christensen grew up in a working-class family. In describing his family background, Christensen later said that the "driving factor" in his pursuit of playing professional rugby league was to "get my mum a house." He attended Huripaki Primary School, Kamo Intermediate and Whangarei Boys' High School. As a child he has been described as being a "big, bulky kid" who was "painfully extroverted", as well as "a freakish sporting talent, a competitive tackler, a champion high swimmer, rugby union player and the kid who played footy in teams a couple of age divisions above, to make things fairer." Despite being tipped to have a promising future in swimming and rugby union, Christensen abandoned it when he was about fifteen years old. Though his father was an accomplished rugby league player, that was what gave Christensen the drive to leave New Zealand to pursue a career in the NRL in Australia at only sixteen.
Career
Christensen abandoned it all when he was fifteen years old to move to Australia alone by being scouted by the Parramatta Eels. Christensen was pursued by 4 NRL clubs including Parramatta, Melbourne, Manly and Warriors. He then eventually signed for the Parramatta Eels for 5 years on-wards because he stated that he 'just felt like home'. Christensen made his first appearance in 2012, scoring 2 tries in his NRL debut and a total of 34 in his 61 games over the 5 years that he has played since the signage of his contract. During mid-season in 2011, Christensen was selected to represent the New Zealand Rugby League Team as well as appointed captain for the Kiwis. Consecutively, he managed to continue the captaincy of the Kiwis for two more years in 2012 and 2013 with a total of 13 appearances, scoring 6 tries with a strike rate of 10 wins and 3 losses.
