FRANK LOMANI

FIJI IS a land of rugby players. Spend any time on the islands and you’ll quickly see that it is the sport there. Kids run around villages, using whatever they can for a ball; teenagers play games of touch on the beach; club matches take place on pitches in picturesque settings; families crowd around television screens to watch overseas sevens tournaments.

With such a foundation in the sport, it’s little wonder Fiji also produces some of the most talented rugby players on the planet – look around the world’s top Test teams and many have players of Fijian origin in their line-ups. Yet rugby wasn’t supposed to be on the agenda for Frank Lomani.

Lomani grew up in the village of Nukubalavu on Fiji’s second largest island, Vanua Levu, with his parents, two sisters and three brothers. As a child, he would rise at 5am for the half-hour walk up to the family farm in the local