Rauhihi was part of the Northcote side that won the Fox Memorial in 1994. After leaving the navy to concentrate on his rugby league career, Rauhihi played in 17 reserve grade games for the Warriors in 1996 and was a part of the Reserve Grade side that lost the 1997 grand final.[9]
In 2001, he moved to the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. In the same year, he played in Canterbury's 52-10 elimination final loss against Cronulla-Sutherland. In the 2002 NRL season, Rauhihi played 23 games for Canterbury in what turned out to be one of the club's most turbulent. After going on a 16-game winning streak, it was discovered by the NRL that Canterbury had exceeded the NRL's salary cap by $2 million over 3 years including undisclosed payments made to players. As a result, the NRL fined Canterbury $500,000 and stripped them of all their 37 competition points meaning that the club would finish the 2002 season with the wooden spoon.[11]
Rauhihi then moved to the North Queensland Cowboys, winning the club's player of the year award in 2003.[12] He also captained the side due to regular captain Paul Bowman being out with injury in 2004, and also when Travis Norton was out due to injury in 2005. He played at prop in the 2005 NRL Grand Final, the Cowboys' first, which they lost to the Wests Tigers.
Rauhihi moved to England after the 2005 grand final loss, joining the Warrington Wolves where he was given the number 10 jersey. In 2009, after a number of seasons plagued by back injury, Rauhihi retired.
Between 2002 and 2005 he played in seventeen matches for the New Zealand national rugby league team, including captaining the side in the 2004 Tr-nations series due to an injury to Ruben Wiki. He was also part of the 2005 Tri Nations squad that won the competition.
In 2023, Rauhihi participated in season 3 of Match Fit, where former rugby players return to play against the Australian counterparts. He joined in the first season that featured former rugby league stars.[15] On episode 5, he revealed that he was an orphan and was adopted, and he buried his debut Kiwis jersey with his adopted father when he died when Rauhihi was in his 20's. He also revealed that he prefers weights and power training over running.
