Vinaya Habosi

Vinaya Habosi joined a Fiji tour of New Zealand in 2021 with what everyone took to be groin pain. It was a blood infection that had reached the bone. He was hospitalised in Christchurch, spent two weeks unable to move, and came close to paralysis or worse before antibiotics worked.

He plays on the wing for Racing 92, is 1.84m and 100kg, and is 26.

He is from the village of Nayawa in Nadroga-Navosa, the youngest of six children, and worked as a firefighter after leaving school. His older brother Aporosa Tabulawaki played professionally too. He captained the Nadroga under-19s in 2019 and scored the try and the decisive penalty in a provincial final.

Eight months after the hospital bed he was playing Super Rugby. The Fijian Drua signed him for their first season in the competition and he scored five tries in twelve matches, and was widely regarded as one of the finds of the year. Fiji capped him against Tonga in Suva in July 2022 and he scored.

The Drua then dismissed him shortly before the 2023 season for what they described as high-level misconduct. Racing, who had already agreed to sign him for the following season, brought him over a week later as a medical joker.

The Drua dismissal has never been explained in any detail publicly, and the club he was already contracted to simply moved his arrival forward rather than reconsidering it, which suggests they had heard enough to be comfortable.

Four tries in seven Top 14 matches followed before an orbital floor injury, caused accidentally by his own teammate Camille Chat, ended his first season in France.