Rasolea eyes Fijiana debut against England in Rugby World Cup

Rasolea is a familiar name when it comes to Fijian rugby. Solomoni Rasolea Senior made his debut for the Flying Fijians on the wings in 1984 before his son Junior Rasolea featured for the Fijian Under-20 at the World Rugby Championship in 2011.

Continuing the family legacy is the Fijiana prop Siteri Rasolea who is looking forward to making her debut for the national team in the World Cup this weekend.

The 26-year-old and the daughter of Rasolea Senior is the third one in the family to wear the white jersey which she is very proud of.

Born and bred in Brisbane, Rasolea always had a dream of representing Fiji.

She said “It’s been an honor to be just around the girls and be amongst the environment. Definitely, at the start, it was a bit of a tussle to understand or just to even pick which team because I was also eligible to represent Wallaroos.”

She added it was her dad who had always motivated her to take up challenges and added that they did not hesitate to send her to camp after receiving a call from Fijiana Head Coach Senirusi Seruvakula.

Rasolea said “I think at the end of the day my heart always wanted to represent my home county and my family back home as well as my dad and brother have donned the white jumper so for myself being the third one in my family to put on the “Siqeleti Vulavula” is an honor not only to myself but to my family.

My dad is really proud and was super keen from the first-day coach messaged to see if I was keen to trial for the team.”

She added the selection to make it into the final 32-member squad hasn’t been any easy therefore the girls are ready to give the best shot in their opening Rugby World Cup match against England on Saturday.

“It will be an intense battle going up against number one in the world but I know that the girls have really been backing each other.

It is not going to be an easy game this week but I think just only focusing on the basis, doing what we can do try and get little things right will assist us and in the result of the game” said Rasolea.

Fijiana takes on England – 3.45pm FJT at Eden Park on Saturday.