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Paraguayan club Olimpia Lions clear Napolioni Nalaga to play for local side in Fiji

Naipolioni Nalaga (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Napolioni Nalaga – once the most devastating winger in European club rugby – is back playing the sport in Fiji, years after he left the islands to pursue a professional rugby career.

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Nalaga has been cleared by his Paraguayan club – Olimpia Lions – to play for his original club, Nadroga Rugby. “Nalaga has been cleared by his overseas club,” Nadroga Club President Tiko Matawalu told the Fiji Sun. “We are now waiting for his clearance from the Fiji Rugby Union but his name is on the team list.”

It’s the most recent chapter in what has become something of a journeyman career for the massive Fjian wing. Standing 6’2 and tipping the scales at 17 stone, Nalaga was arguably the most feared strike runner in Europe for a space in time, and still holds the record for the most tries in the Champions Cup by a Fijian (25).

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Nadroga are the club that first cultivated the Sigatoa born wing’s rare talents back in the mid-noughties. He represented the club at U21 level before he made the jump to the Fiji U21 team that went on to contest the 2006  Rugby World Championship in France.

He was soon scouted and was signed to Top 14 giants Clermont in 2007. He scored 105 tries in 165 games during his time at Clermont Auvergne and was a Heineken Cup Finalist in 2013. He failed to return to the club in 2011 and had his contract terminated, before linking up with the Western Force in Perth for a stint.

In 2011 he scored a try at the Rugby World Cup for the Flying Fijians, emulating his father’s exploits in the 1987 competition. Kavekini Nalaga scored a try for the Fijians against Argentina in Hamilton.

He returned to Clermont in 2012, where in total he spent eight years of his career. He signed for Lyon in 2015, before popping up at London Irish in 2017, where he managed just five appearances and one try.

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His next port of call would be Lokomotiv Penza in Russia’s Premier League in 2019, although it’s not entirely clear how much rugby – if any – he played for the side.

He raised eye-brows yet again this year, when he signed for the even more obscure Olimpia Lions, Paraguay’s first professional rugby team. The Lions contest the new SLAR competition in South America, although the competition’s inaugural season was cut short by COVID-19.

SLAR consists of six teams, with five of those sides – from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Brazil – competing in a regular season that, upon its conclusion, the top four sides will go into the playoffs. The fifth-placed side will enter the Challenge Trophy with Cafeteros Pro, a club from Medellín in Colombia who are not a full participant for the debut season.

Nalaga was the club’s major signing alongside Puma wing Manuel Montero  and the club have now allowed the wing to play again in his native Fiji. Although he’s signed a two-season contract with the Lions, should Nalaga ultimately remain in his native Fiji, it will bring in an end of the most well-traveled of professional rugby careers.

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Bull Shark 1 hour ago
Rassie Erasmus' Boks selection policy is becoming bizarre

To be fair, the only thing that drives engagement on this site is over the top critiques of Southern Hemisphere teams.


Or articles about people on podcasts criticizing southern hemisphere teams.


Articles regarding the Northern Hemisphere tend to be more positive than critical. I guess to also rile up kiwis and Saffers who seem to be the majority of followers in the comments section. There seems to be a whole department dedicated to Ireland’s world ranking news.


Despite being dialled into the Northern edition - I know sweet fokall about what’s going on in France.


And even less than fokall about what’s cutting in Japan - which has a fast growing, increasingly premium League competition emerging.


And let’s not talk about the pacific. Do they even play rugby Down there.


Oh and the Americas. I’ve read more articles about a young, stargazing Welshman’s foray into NFL than I have anything related to either the north and south continents of the Americas.


I will give credit that the women’s game is getting decent airtime. But for the rest and the above; it’s just pathetic coming from a World Rugby website.


Just consider the innovation emerging in Japan with the pedigree of coaches over there.


There’s so much good we could be reading.


Instead it’s unimaginative “critical for the sake of feigning controversial”. Which is lazy, because in order to pull that off all you need to be really good at is:


1. Being a doos;

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No prior experience needed.


Which is not journalism. That’s like all or most of us in the comments section. People like Finn (who I believe is a RP contributor).


Anyway. Hopefully it will get better. The game is growing and the interest in the game is growing. Maybe it will attract more qualified journalists over time.

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