Rupeni Caucaunibuca in action during a 2022 Super 12 match against the Hurricanes. Photo / Photosport
Speaking to people from each stage of Rupeni Caucaunibuca’s rugby career, there is one line from Yannick Nyanga, the former France flanker and his teammate at Toulouse, that felt increasingly pertinent.
“I think this guy had the lowest possible career that he could have had,” Nyanga said. “If he wanted, he could have won more titles, more best-player-in-the-Top-14 awards, anything he could want.”
Keep that statement in mind, and then consider the following career facts. “Caucau” played just eight test matches for Fiji. From his debut with Northland in 2001 to his final stint with Agen in 2014, the winger played only 170 first-class games and scored 109 tries. And yet to this day, he remains the closest thing the sport has seen to Jonah Lomu with the potential even to surpass the man who changed rugby forever.
That statement is not made lightly. The way he moved, the balance, and the acceleration were something very few others had. And yet his career was turbulent, not a triumph, blighted by injury, absence and suspension. This bewildering talent never scaled rugby’s greatest heights. Why?
This may not come as a surprise given Caucaunibuca’s speed, but the boy from Nasau Village, in the Bua district of Vanua Levu Island, was scouted at a local sevens tournament by the Fiji sevens head coach, Rupeni Ravonu. Fast-tracked into the national side in 2001, he featured in five World Series events and scored a ridiculous 38 tries – while also being sent off in a Wellington Sevens final for two reckless tackles – and went to the Sevens World Cup in Argentina. The star of that tournament? Lomu.
Off the back of that, Northland signed him to play in New Zealand’s National Provincial Championship. Watching Caucau’s highlights reel from the 2001 season, he looks as though he is from a different planet.
Wayne Pivac, who would go on to coach Caucau with Fiji, was Auckland’s head coach at that time. “Those were games where we would normally win by a reasonable scoreline, probably 20, 30 points. Northland beat us at Eden Park 44-43 with a converted Caucau try in the last minute. He was electrifying.”
The Blues made their move. It should be acknowledged that going from a small village in Fiji to a major city in New Zealand must have been a seismic culture shock for a 21-year-old. Caucau arrived with no bank account and limited English.
His Blues debut in a 2002 pre-season fixture against Queensland Reds also happened to be the union debut for Wallabies wing Wendell Sailor, a big mover from rugby league. Pivac was in the stands. “A lot of people came to see Sailor play. And afterwards, no one talked about Sailor. They talked about this kid from Northland who scored four tries and made Sailor and the Australia full-back, Chris Latham, look pretty ordinary.”
Caucau dazzled in a squad packed full of headline acts: Carlos Spencer, Mils Muliaina, Joe Rokocoko, Rico Gear and Doug Howlett. Good luck defending against that. No one really could in 2003, the year the Blues lifted the Super 12 title.
“The training ground was the most fun place to be,” Howlett explains. “At a glance, you had probably the 10 best rugby players in the world, playing a five-on-five game of touch. It was a pretty neat environment for us to all grow and learn.”
Howlett, an exceptional All Black, admired Caucau’s speed, balance and calmness under pressure. Injuries to his knee and ankle forced Caucau to miss the semifinal and final, but he made a colossal impact.
Fit again, Caucau was named in Fiji’s squad for the 2003 Rugby World Cup and soon was no longer a secret tucked away in New Zealand. He announced himself to the world with tries against France and Scotland that took everyone’s breath away.
It is not easy to pick a favourite moment out of those three scores. Maybe it is how Aurélien Rougerie suddenly looks as though he is running in treacle.
#OTD at RWC 2003, Rupeni Caucau announced himself to the world 🔥@fijirugby 🇫🇯 pic.twitter.com/h3Ue8JDgBW
— Rugby World Cup (@rugbyworldcup) October 11, 2021
The way Caucau squeezed past Kenny Logan to finish in the corner. Or what the late Tom Smith must have been thinking when he realised that he, a prop, was the man suddenly tasked with covering a rampaging Caucau who had 80m of green grass ahead of him.
Now, everyone knew Caucau’s name. The two-match ban he received for shoulder-charging Fabien Pelous and punching Olivier Magne? A mere footnote.
England, busy on their own side of the draw, watched on in admiration, as revealed by Jonny Wilkinson. “One part of you says ‘Oh my gosh, that is incredible,’ and the other thinks ‘Crikey, what happens when I’m up against that?‘.”
England’s World Cup-winning first five-eighth explains. “Playing against Lomu was the same. They can run round you or through you. They have the pace and agility. There’s not a lot you can offer but to hang in there.”
The price for Caucau’s newfound fame was the start of a career-long battle with off-field politics. After the World Cup, everybody wanted him, and Caucau wanted something too: to become an All Black. “I believe I have done my part for Fiji,” he said at the end of 2003. “I am switching allegiance and going for a spot in the All Blacks team.”
Legally, this was never really on the cards, with Caucau banking on eligibility changes that would come into effect the following April. They never did. With his Blues contract expiring, the offers arrived for big money.
If you thought Wilkinson’s inclusion just now was slightly random, there is a reason. Wilkinson, fresh from winning the World Cup but now injured, flew from Newcastle to Auckland alongside Rob Andrew, the club’s director of rugby, to convince Caucau that playing in the north-east of England should be his next move.
“We had a meeting, a really good conversation and laid out what we thought would be an exciting opportunity for Caucau,” Wilkinson recalls. They were not in New Zealand to try to sign anyone else, just him. “We could see clearly that he was an immense talent, raw rugby power and intelligence in a genetically perfect form for rugby. It was a big moment for Newcastle and potentially very exciting, but we never really heard too much back other than that it was a good meeting.”
Instead, Caucau moved to France “on very big money”, as Pivac puts it. Think about that first culture shock moving to New Zealand, then double it. Howlett, reflecting on the environment the Blues had worked to create to bring the best out of Caucau, still sounds disappointed.
“We bid him farewell and wished him the best. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little upset that he left in the prime of his career,” adds Howlett.
“Even for the very best professionals, a move overseas is fraught with risk. All we can say is we tried our best to create an environment in Auckland within the Blues where Rupeni could thrive and be his best, and that took some adjusting in itself for someone like Rupeni. And we all bought into that, all played a role to ensure he had a settling period in the region. Through that, we got to know Rupeni for Rupeni, not so much the rugby player, the fella. And we all loved him.”
Arriving at Agen in 2004, Caucau had one familiar face in Vula Maimuri, his Northland and Fiji teammate, and only two fellow English speakers: South African centre Conrad Stoltz and the Canada international Colin Yukes. The coaches and support staff spoke only French. It took time for Caucau to settle. Yukes was beginning to wonder if he was worth the investment.
“He wasn’t up to much for the first few months, maybe he was feeling like a fish out of water. But once he started, he was scoring like no other,” Yukes explains.
As the time passed, the svelte Caucau from the World Cup was replaced by more of a battering ram. “The more out of shape he became, the less training he did and the fatter he got, it seemed to make him better, not worse. He would weigh 110kg and have a big belly, and yet somehow run as fast while bouncing everybody off him.”
After not scoring until Christmas, Caucaunibuca finished his first top 14 season as the league’s top try-scorer with 16. The next season, he scored 17 and was named the top 14 player of the year. Ignore his frame – this was pure greatness. “Playing Leinster, I remember him making Brian O’Driscoll look silly a couple of times and thinking ‘that guy is a good rugby player’,” adds Yukes.
Pivac, who by then was coaching Fiji, adds: “He had gone over to France, scored tries for fun, become very matey with the president of Agen and did not train a lot, just turned up and scored tries. When he turned up for Fiji training, he said: ‘Don’t worry Wayne, I don’t go round people any more, I just go over the top of them.’ He was a real character.”
Off the field was where things began to unravel. Caucau would pick up injuries, return to Fiji and fail to return on time, repeating the pattern on a loop with Agen impatiently waiting for his return.
He was also banned by the Fiji Rugby Union for a year in 2005 after failing to turn up for several matches. Pivac and Fiji did manage to get Caucau to the airport for a flight to Tonga before a Pacific Nations Cup match, but he never made it past security.
“Caucau wanted the FRU to pay for his wife’s flights and for her to stay with him in his room. Given the finances of FRU back in those days, what the players were being paid, on his Agen salary, Caucau could have bought the FRU himself,” Pivac laughs.
Caucau told the team his wife had a toothache and he missed the flight, returning to Vanua Levu. The news leaked out to the press. Pivac explains: “Instead of playing in the test match in Tonga, he was in a local nightclub back on his island. He was taken outside and given a bit of a hiding, and ended up in hospital. It was quite sad.”
The blows kept coming. He missed the first 10 games of the 2006-07 top 14 season with typhoid. Then the following March, he was banned for three months after a positive cannabis test. There was no space for him in Fiji’s 2007 World Cup squad, and then Agen released him at the start of 2008. Which is where Leicester Tigers come in.
Two flights were booked to bring Caucau from Fiji to Welford Road, with Seru Rabeni trying to convince him to join Richard Cockerill’s side. But Caucau never got on the plane, and by the end of the year, was back at Agen.
“I’m not entirely certain he was a great person,” explains Yukes, when asked what it was like waiting for Caucau to return. “Guys just accepted that he was good enough, that he would show up at some point and score a bunch of tries.”
When Caucau turned up late and overweight for pre-season in 2010, Agen had had enough and released him for a second time.
Toulouse, with Yann David out for the season, had a space for a medical joker. Agen had battled gamely during his time there and been relegated, but now, at Toulouse, Caucau was joining a juggernaut. He arrived well out of shape and was given a month to get up to full fitness. Nyanga recalls watching him in one of his early sessions.
“He had a GPS on, and the strength and conditioning coach came back and said: ‘Can you imagine how fast he could be?’ It looked like he was jogging, but he was so fast already,” Nyanga recalls, before telling a wonderful story about the moment Toulouse realised that Caucau still had it.
“I remember the first training session with us, they put him at 12. Thierry Dusautoir went to make a tackle, and Caucau ran over him. We all said, okay, if he does that to Titi, he is definitely still special,” adds Nyanga.
“I’ve seen a lot of good players, but he is the most impressive so far. And I didn’t know him at his best, but still, he was the best player I have ever seen.”
It turned out to be an astonishing cameo with Caucaunibuca, then 31, helping Toulouse win the top 14 that season and starting in the final. He looked a good three stone heavier than his days with the Blues, but, as Wilkinson notes, talent never goes away.
“Age, injury … it is still there. You can still sense it in the smallest of movements, that change of direction and pace. There is an understanding there, a relationship with a rugby ball which goes deeper than things you can learn.”
It proved to be Caucau’s last hurrah. His body broke down at the start of the 2011-12 season, and despite a brief return to Northland and then to Agen for a third spell, it was over. He returned to Fiji.
Those who have seen him up close laud his talents but seem to all speak with regret, wondering what might have been. Here is Pivac. “If he had played for a Tier One nation, he would have gone down as one of the best players of all time.”
Yukes wonders whether Caucau was “fighting some sort of demons inside, whatever it was that that stopped him from playing to his potential”. Mental health was not really discussed 20 years ago as it is now.
“He could have played for whoever he wanted and won whatever he wanted, had he put in even 25% of effort,” Yukes says.
They are right. Caucaunibuca should have been one of the greatest rugby players of all time. What might have been had he stayed in that environment at the Blues for longer, or had someone at Agen to manage not only his body and mental health, but his finances?
“I just used it for nothing. I spent it on drinking and helping people,” he said back in 2019 after being declared bankrupt. The way his career panned out feels like a tragedy.
There is a final phone call to make for this piece. It is to Caucau himself. He is polite and softly spoken, currently in Labasa on his home island. His two daughters are now 20 and 12, while his son, Rupeni Caucaunibuca Junior, is 18 and showing promise as a sprinter.
Caucau has had a turbulent last few years. After his financial problems were made public, a taxi was given to him following a fundraising event to support him and give him a livelihood. But it was later stolen.
To be honest, I simply want to know how he is.
“I’m feeling well,” he tells me, adding that he has stopped training.
This is no inquest, Caucau has told his story before, but I want to clear up a few details. When was he happiest? “In 2003 with the Super 12, and in 2011 when we won the Top 14.”
He remembers the meeting with Wilkinson about Newcastle. “Very cold, that’s what they told me.” And he admits that moving to France at first was “very hard”, recalling how he went for French lessons every Wednesday after training.
His favourite tries, unsurprisingly, came in that 2003 World Cup, with his shoe-shining celebration against Scotland dedicated to the shoe-shiners back in Fiji.
There is one regret, however, which has defined Caucaunibuca’s later life. Reneging on a pre-contract agreement with Racing 92 led to a €250,000 ($480,315) fine. Caucaunibuca had planned to sell his house in France and bring that money back to Fiji. Instead, he had to pay up.
“Because [Racing] wanted to take me to court, I couldn’t do anything. It was a very difficult time. €250,000 is over half a million dollars in Fiji. That was the worst part of my life.”
And now? “My children are all good here, their mother is very good. We relax here back in Fiji. We’re very happy.”
The Pope died on Monday aged 88.