Alivereti Loaloa

Alivereti Loaloa led Pro D2 for turnovers won in 2022-23, with 38 in twenty-four starts. He led it again the following season with 25. He is a centre. Centres do not usually appear anywhere near the top of that list.

He is 1.82m and 101kg and plays for Clermont. That jackal habit is a leftover: in Fiji he was a flanker, and Nevers moved him into midfield when he arrived.

He was born in the village of Mataso on Kadavu, and did not pick up a rugby ball until he was thirteen. Within a year he was playing tournaments abroad, including one in Japan. He went to Ratu Kadavulevu School and won the Deans Trophy with them in 2016, then captained Fiji Under-18s on a tour of New Zealand. He played the Pacific Challenge for the Fiji Warriors in March 2019, and all five matches of that year’s Junior World Championship, four of them starting at flanker, scoring once.

Sireli Bobo spotted him and got him to France. Nevers took him into their academy for 2019-20 on a three-year deal.

The injuries were severe. He wrecked a knee in the opening round of 2021-22 and did not come back until the end of the season. A bad shoulder injury at the end of 2023-24 kept him out for nine months, and he only returned in February 2025.

Several Top 14 clubs wanted him for 2024-25 and he stayed at Nevers. When he finally left in 2025, with two years still to run on his contract, Grenoble’s coach Nicolas Nadau told him after his last match that he was the best centre in the division.

Clermont started him against Toulouse on his debut, alongside Léon Darricarrère. It went badly — five missed tackles out of twelve, a 34-24 home defeat and a knock on the knee.

The turnover threat is real and rare in a midfielder. The defensive reads at this level are the thing he still has to fix.