{"id":291654,"date":"2023-10-08T12:41:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T12:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/?p=291654"},"modified":"2023-10-08T12:41:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-08T12:41:04","slug":"frank-lomani-gunning-for-rugby-world-cup-history-against-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/rugby-union\/frank-lomani-gunning-for-rugby-world-cup-history-against-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Lomani gunning for Rugby World Cup history against England"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Frank Lomani ran away from home with just four Fijian dollars in his pocket to avoid having to work in a bank&#8230; Now the scrum-half is gunning for Rugby World Cup history against England<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Lomani was 18 when he left his village and his family to pursue his rugby dream<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>His parents didn&#8217;t like him playing rugby and lined up a job in a bank\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Now he&#8217;s on course to play England in the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Latest Rugby World Cup 2023 news, including fixtures, live scores and results<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Frank Lomani&#8217;s eyes light up when he thinks back to it: running away from home with a small bag and four Fijian dollars in his pocket.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He boarded the overnight ferry and watched his island disappear into the distance, waves lapping against the boat as he set sail on a life of adventure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It was 2015,&#8217; he says. &#8216;I lived in a village called Savu Savu. We grew our own food. Taro, cassava, yam, sweet potato. Pigs for pork. The farm was a one-hour walk up the hill. I was brought up on the sugar cane farm. I lived there for 18 years and never left.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;At the time I was still in high school and I was going to get job at Westpac bank. The Westpac manager wanted me to go and work there after school because I was good at maths. We didn&#8217;t have the money to send me to university so my parents saw that as a job opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I didn&#8217;t want to work for the bank so I ran away. Ran to the city. It was a Friday. When I left home that morning, I had already packed my stuff to run away after my last exam paper.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/08\/06\/76295041-12606983-image-a-14_1696743526093.jpg\" height=\"449\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Fiji star Frank Lomani has told of how he ran away from home to pursue his rugby dream<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/08\/06\/76295051-12606983-image-a-15_1696743574099.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The scrum-half and Fiji are on a collision course with England in the World Cup quarter-finals\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I took the ferry, 13 hours. My uncle gave me my one-way fare to Suva. It was 56 bucks and he gave me 60, so I slept on the ferry with four dollars in my pocket. I bought one roti parcel and then had two dollars left.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I got into the city in the evening, saw all these big buildings and lights and thought, &#8216;Oh my God!&#8217; I was only used to one or two storey buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;My uncle came to pick me up from the jetty and I asked him not to tell my parents. They thought I&#8217;d gone to the sugar cane farm to work. Little did they know I had caught the ferry to Suva!&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The gold veneer on Lomani&#8217;s front tooth catches the sun as he speaks. A result of dental treatment after an elbow to his mouth while playing rugby in his village.\u00a0He explains how he never tires of telling this story.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sitting in the courtyard following Fiji&#8217;s team hotel in Bordeaux, he continues: &#8216;My parents didn&#8217;t want me to play rugby. My dad wanted me to be a soccer player and earn big money.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We had Saturday classes at school\u2026 I wore my uniform on the bus, got off at the field, changed my uniform and played rugby! I played for the village team the whole year! Every Saturday! My parents never knew.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;In the village, we played touch rugby after school every afternoon. When I got to Suva, I went to this school where they played touch rugby, every day for two weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;My parents rang my family at the sugar cane field and they said, &#8216;Oh, he&#8217;s not here&#8217;. They called around and found out I was in Suva. They found out on the Friday and told my uncle to send me back on the next boat on the Sunday.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/08\/06\/76295057-12606983-image-a-16_1696743607655.jpg\" height=\"404\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Fiji need a point against Portugal on Sunday to reach the knockout stages for the first time since 2007<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/08\/06\/76295063-12606983-image-a-17_1696743661917.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Lomani tackles Australia&#8217;s Jordan Petaia during their group stage meeting last month<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;That Saturday there was a club game in Suva, for Marist Rugby Club. I was coming home from touch rugby, walking home on the road and I could hear someone calling from the back saying, &#8216;Our coach wants you to come back because we are short on numbers!&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I went into the club, didn&#8217;t know anyone, played wing and scored two tries. I didn&#8217;t know the Fiji Under-20 coach was watching. I was 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The 20s coach asked my coach if I wanted to play for Fiji 20s, then Ben Ryan was watching and he recruited me for sevens. I never played for the sevens team but I never gave up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Ben Ryan told me that if I want to make it big then I need to go elsewhere, so I went to 15s. So that was the start\u2026&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Eight years later and here we are. Unless there is a seismic upset in Nimes on Sunday night, Fiji will face England in the quarter-final in Marseille.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They have formed a steely edge under Simon Raiwalui. Lomani has become a key figure, kicking goals, jackaling and feeding off any scraps.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/08\/06\/76295071-12606983-image-a-18_1696743717291.jpg\" height=\"481\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Lomani says Fiji&#8217;s style is just the same as they&#8217;d play back home in his village<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;You know how we offload and all that? How we play now is how they play back in the village. We say, &#8216;Play like a Fijian&#8217;. That&#8217;s our DNA and you can&#8217;t take that away from us. We played on a ground with holes everywhere, we played on roundabouts. If we didn&#8217;t have a ball we would tie a T-shirt together and use that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I have been in this environment for eight years now and this team is growing. The world knew Fiji as a 40-minute team but it&#8217;s way different to how it was before. You can see that every team now plays Fiji as if we are a tier one nation, as if we are a threat.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Fiji need a point against Portugal on Sunday to reach the knockout stages for the first time since 2007. Lomani says: &#8216;I was in year six. Back then, we didn&#8217;t have TVs in the village. I remember listening to it on the radio. The radio was hung up so you could get reception. Everyone was stood around it in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;They put a benchmark where every team after them has tried to reach. Every Fiji team that goes to the Rugby World Cup wants to reach that.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The class of 2023 are next in line. Listening to Lomani, they clearly have an ability to inspire.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/rugbyunion\/article-12606983\/Frank-Lomani-ran-away-home-just-four-Fijian-dollars-pocket-avoid-having-work-bank-scrum-half-gunning-Rugby-World-Cup-history-against-England.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Frank Lomani ran away from home with just four Fijian dollars in his pocket to avoid having to work in a bank&#8230; Now the scrum-half <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/rugby-union\/frank-lomani-gunning-for-rugby-world-cup-history-against-england\/\" title=\"Frank Lomani gunning for Rugby World Cup history against England\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby-union"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Frank Lomani gunning for Rugby World Cup history against England - Sportstoft<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/rugby-union\/frank-lomani-gunning-for-rugby-world-cup-history-against-england\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frank Lomani gunning for Rugby World Cup history against England - Sportstoft\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Frank Lomani ran away from home with just four Fijian dollars in his pocket to avoid having to work in a bank&#8230; 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