Fijian-born New Zealand winger Waisake Naholo played in Major League Rugby during the 2022 season. He represented Rugby New York for his entire MLR career.

Born in Sigatoka in Fiji, Waisake Naholo played provincial rugby in New Zealand for Whanganui in the 2009 Heartland Championship. He progressed to the ITM Cup (now the NPC) in 2011, joining the Taranaki Bulls who he represented at provincial level until 2019. The same year he joined Taranaki, he was selected for the New Zealand U20s for the World U20 Championship in Italy, which they won. The following year Naholo earned his Sevens World Series debut for New Zealand and was a part of the team that won the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens. At 15s level, he joined the Hurricanes wider training squad that same year and after a standout ITM Cup season for Taranaki, earned a Super Rugby Contract with the Blues for 2013, earning his Super Rugby debut in Round 4.

Although Naholo only earned 1 additional appearance for the Blues, he enjoyed another standout year in 2015. He had joined the Highlanders for that year’s Super Rugby season and finished the campaign as the league’s top try scorer with 13. He was called up to the All Blacks squad for the 2015 Rugby Championship and earned his test debut against Argentina, cracking a bone in the process that looked like it would rule him out of the 2015 Rugby World Cup. However, in a shock move Waisake Naholo was included in the All Blacks World Cup squad and featured in their latter two pool stage games against Georgia and Tonga, helping the All Blacks to defend their title as World Cup Champions.

Naholo earned a total of 27 caps for the All Blacks between 2015-2018, and continued to represent the Highlanders in Super Rugby until 2019. His last season with the Highlanders was plagued with injury that also ruled him out of contention for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Following this, Naholo headed to the UK to join London Irish in the Premiership for the 2019/20 season, scoring 2 tries in 4 games before the COVID-19 Pandemic cut the season short and he returned to New Zealand, playing with Canterbury. Ahead of the 2022 MLR season Rugby New York made some waves with the announcement that they had signed Waisake Naholo, who scored 2 tries in 6 games for the Ironworkers that year, gaining over 500m in possession.

Following his sole year in North America, Naholo returned to New Zealand and continued to play in the NPC with Otago until 2024.