Rugby: Former All Black to be honoured

Former All Black Joeli Vidiri. Photo / Greg Bowker

Former rugby star and father of two Joeli Vidiri will be honoured tomorrow in more ways than one.

On Father's Day, he'll be thinking of his son and daughter, aged 12 and 14, but his own life and career will also be celebrated at Pukekohe's ECOLight Stadium.

The 41-year-old Fijian played 96 Blues games, 7 Counties Manukau games, two All Blacks tests, and was part of the sevens team that won gold at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.

He scored 56 tries from 71 games between 1994 and 2000, before kidney disease ended his career.

Vidiri's now an ambassador for the charity Kidney Kids.

His former agent, Phil Kingsley Jones, said tomorrow Vidiri would be a "big daddy" to all of the Kidney Kids that attended the Pukekohe ceremony, which is scheduled for halftime at a game between Counties Manukau and Bay of Plenty.

In May this year Vidiri received a new kidney, which changed his life.

"I feel great, a lot better. I had nephritis for 16 years and was on dialysis three days a week," he said.