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Vakatawa retirement is over as Barbarians pick him to face Samoa
By Liam Heagney
It’s official: The premature retirement of former France midfielder Virimi Vakatawa is over as he has been named to start in the Barbarians team that will play Samoa this Friday in a Rugby World Cup warm-up match in Brive.
It was this time last year that the then 30-year-old French player announced that he had to retire from playing with immediate effect
The world of rugby was left in shock when it emerged that the 32-cap Test centre had been banned from playing by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby’s medical committee.
Vakatawa went on to host a media conference at the Racing 92 training centre in Paris to explain that a cardiac issue was why he must suddenly quit playing.
However, 12 months later, RugbyPass exclusively reported on August 5 that Vakatawa was in line for a sensational return.
That retirement has now officially ended following his selection in the Pat Lam-coached Baa-Baas team for this weekend's match in France where Vakatawa will partner former Wallabies midfielder Curtis Rona in an XV that also features standby Springboks RWC players, scrum-half Herschel Jantjies and hooker Joseph Dweba.
BARBARIANS (vs Samoa): 15. T Nanai-Williams; 14. T Fricker, 13. V Vakatawa, 12. C Rona, 11. H Speight, 10. A Frisch, 9. H Jantjies; 1. A Seuili, 2. J Dweba, 3. J Toomoga-Allen, 4. JL du Preez, 5. R Hugo, 6. D Richardson, 7. J Lam, 8. M Eadie. Reps: 16. A Venter, 17. R Evans, 18. S Longwell, 19. J Tekori, 20. Y Sakamoto, 21. M Green, 22. J Williams, 23. D Hoyland.
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So was I right to infer that you assumed a 1:1 correspondence between points and places?
If so why were you so evasive about admitting that?
I don't have much of an opinion about how it should be done. It isn't my preferred system as I think there should be a significant number of teams who qualify directly as a result of their performance in the previous year's CC. But I think 6/5/5 or 6/6/4 would probably make the most sense as splits if they ever did go over to the UEFA model.
Go to commentsStopping the drop off out of high school has to be of highest priority - there is a lot of rugby played at high school level, but the pathways once they leave are not there. Provincial unions need support here from Rugby Canada to prop up that space.
Concussion is also an issue that has seen sports like ultimate frisbee gain ground. All competitions and clubs should integrate touch rugby teams into their pathways. Whenever clubs play XVs games, they should also be taking 20mins to play a competitive touch rugby game too.
Then take rugby branding and move it away from the fringe game that only crazy people play and make it an exercise-first sport that caters to everyone including people who don't want contact.
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