47 minutes ago.

Family and friends of missing New Zealand Warriors rugby league player Sonny Fai hold out hope he will be found alive after he was swept out to sea from an Auckland beach.

But searchers presume he has drowned after he went into the water with three family members at west Auckland's Bethells Beach on Sunday evening.

His agent Frank Endacott believed 20-year-old Fai had just completed a training run on the beach and had gone to cool off in the surf, Stuff website reported.

It is believed Fai's younger brother became separated from the group and Fai had swum out to help him. He was then struck by a wave and swept away.

The alarm was raised about 8pm (1800 AEDT) on Sunday and two inflatable boats and the Westpac Rescue Helicopter were scrambled to the scene.

Three of the men were rescued, but Fai remained missing when the search was called off, about 10pm.

Fai's sister La Lelei said family members and surf life savers continued the search until 2am on Monday when they were told to go home. They returned three hours later to continue looking.

Players and management from the 40-strong Warriors squad also joined the coastline search from 5am on Monday.

The team had been scheduled for their first training session of the season on Monday morning, and team manager Don Mann said the players were devastated.

It is understood the team has paid for a helicopter to conduct an aerial search, and a police boat and rescue helicopter also continued the search.

Surf Lifeguard patrols had finished for the day, when the alarm was raised with an off-duty lifeguard.

The lifeguard was back on the scene with an inflatable rescue boat within 10 minutes.

All four men found themselves in difficulty, with three being swept in a southerly direction and one in a northerly, said Dean Storey, manager at Surf Life Saving Northern Region.

"Surf lifeguards conducted a search in rough conditions with a 1.5m swell but were unable to locate the man. The Westpac Rescue Helicopter also assisted in the search until low light conditions meant the search was called off at 9.30pm.

"A team of five lifeguards will continue the search of shoreline and coastline until 6pm today (Sunday), and will resume at 10am tomorrow (Monday). We expect to continue the search each morning for the rest of the week," Storey said.

Fai played 15 games for the Warriors, and made his National Rugby League debut in March last year.

He was named Warriors 2007 under-20 player of the year, and was a Junior Kiwis player from 2004-07.

Team management addressed the rest of the team today, when pre-season training officially got under way in Auckland.

Warriors management Don Mann and John Hart went to visit the Fai family this morning.

In a tragic coincidence, it is almost 10 years since the death of another up and coming New Zealand Warriors player.

Tai Savea drowned in the Port Waikato River while on a fishing trip in January 1999. He was also just 20-years-old.

7/01/2009 7:47:00 AM.

A helicopter was to return to Bethells Beach on Auckland's west coast on Wednesday, but searchers say there is no chance of finding rising Warriors rugby league star Sonny Fai alive.

Fai, 20, disappeared trying to help his brother who had got into trouble in the shorebreak on Sunday night.

A police helicopter was due to fly north and south of Bethells today, but police said it was a body recovery mission and not a rescue mission.

Sergeant John Saunders, from the police maritime unit in Auckland which is co-ordinating the search, said there were strong currents in the area but often missing swimmers and fishermen were brought back to a point close to where they disappeared.

Yesterday, Warriors captain Steve Price struggled with tears as he spoke of the anguish of his missing team mate.

He and members of Fai's family were clinging to the faint hope he would be found alive.

"Everyone's coping as best they can. We're not giving up, and to us it isn't a tragedy yet. We're still hopeful he's going to be found," he said, admitting that he was finding the situation difficult to cope with.

Saunders said after such a long time there was no chance Fai had survived.

However, he said it was important that his body was recovered to give the family some closure.

"But with a lot of the west coast ones we have, sometimes a body is never found."

He said the general drift was to the north but it was a wild part of the coast and a body may take several days to come to the surface.

The area was also well populated with great white sharks, which could also make the recovery of a body unlikely.