Seru Rabeni

Ratu Seru Raveive Rabeni (born 27 December 1978 in Nabouwalu, Bua Fiji) is a Fijian rugby union footballer. He plays as a centre or wing. Seru Rabeni grew up in Bua, Fiji and has played rugby union since his early schooldays. He first played provincial rugby for Lautoka in 1998-99 while studying at Lautoka Teachers College, before moving on to the capital’s club Suva in 2000.

Seru made his Sevens debut in Dubai in 1998, playing in two Hong Kong Sevens tournaments.

He played at both U21 and U23 level for Fiji before making his test debut in May 2000 against Japan in Tokyo during the Epson Cup tournament. An ankle injury saw him miss the remainder of the tournament.

In 2001 Seru took up a three year degree course at Otago University, New Zealand, and the following year played 7 games for Otago in the National Provincial Championship before gaining a Super 12 contract with Highlanders for whom he played a dozen games over the 2003 and 2004 season.

He has since toured New Zealand with Fiji in 2002, and the same year played Wales at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. He appeared for Fiji in the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

In 2003 he toured with the national side to South America, scoring his a try in the 41-16 victory over Chile in Santiago.

Seru started all four of Fiji’s pool game in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, playing at centre in the games against France and the USA in Brisbane, Japan in Townsville and Scotland in Sydney.

In 2004 he played in all three games for the newly formed Pacific Islanders, scoring a try against New Zealand in Albany and 2 conversions against South Africa in Gosford. Rabeni signed for English club Leicester Tigers shortly after being named in the Pacific Islanders squad. Rabeni made a bright start to his Leicester career scoring eight tries in as many appearances, however since then he has suffered serious knee injuries which forced him to miss the rest of the season and whole of the subsequent season.

Seru Rabeni