Leone Nakarawa

An Olympic gold medallist who was a serving soldier until 2011, and who left the army because New Zealand would not give Fijian military personnel a visa.

Leone Nakarawa was a serving soldier in the Fijian army and could not tour New Zealand, because New Zealand had refused visas to Fijian military personnel since the 2006 coup. In 2011 he left the army to play in the World Cup. He has since won an Olympic gold medal and been named the best player in Europe.

Note on his current club: Nakarawa is still listed in Castres‘s squad data. He signed for the Fijian Drua in 2026.

Second row, 2.00m and 115kg, and the reason people watch him is the offload. He had 25 in the 2014-15 European Cup, more than anyone else in the competition, and he throws them out of contact with one hand at full height.

Glasgow signed him in August 2013. The Pro12 came in 2015 and was man of the match in the final in Belfast, and made the Pro12 dream team the following season.

Racing 92 took him after the 2015 World Cup and he reached a European final with them in 2018. That was the season he won the Anthony Foley trophy as Europe’s best player. It ended badly: after the 2019 World Cup he went home to Fiji and arrived back in Paris two weeks late without telling the club. Racing terminated his contract on 6 December 2019, citing a total lack of team spirit, marked insubordination, and abandoning his post.

Glasgow re-signed him within a month. A deal with Ulster for 2021-22 collapsed in June 2021. He then had a season at Toulon before Castres, who had just been beaten in the Top 14 final, recruited him.

Sixty-two caps for Fiji, thirteen tries. Four Pacific Nations Cups. Olympic sevens champion at Rio in 2016. Voted the best lock in the Top 14 by rugbyrama readers in 2018-19.

At 38 he goes home to play for the Drua. There has not been another forward quite like him.