a panel of doctors said that his cardiac health had deteriorated<\/a>, leaving him too vulnerable to play elite sport in the country.<\/p>\nWhile the decision ruled out any return as a key part of France’s midfield \u2013 where he started the 2019 Rugby World Cup quarter-final against Wales and was a Six Nations regular – it only applied domestically.<\/p>\n
Vakatawa played for Bristol for a season, after being reviewed by the Bears’ own experts, and signed for the Fijian Drua in January.<\/p>\n
He has been called into Fiji’s squad as a replacement for Semi Radradra, who injured his knee in defeat by Wales on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Vakatawa is eligible to represent Fiji under World Rugby’s ‘birthright’ rule, which allows players to switch national allegiances to a country in which they, their parents or grandparents were born in after a three-year stand-down period.<\/p>\n
Vakatawa, who made his most recent France appearance against Japan in July 2022, was born in New Zealand but moved back to his parents’ native Fiji as a young boy.<\/p>\n
“No, to be honest with you,” he told BBC Sport, when asked whether he had considered the possibility of a Test comeback<\/p>\n
“Playing international rugby is something that I knew I was not going to be able to do. From that day [of being barred from playing in France], I thought it was over.<\/p>\n
“Maybe I thought I can still play in club rugby, but this is huge to come and represent my country Fiji.<\/p>\n
“When I was selected, I was surprised. When you play for Fiji, you have to be good, because there are talents everywhere.<\/p>\n
“It is an honour and a privilege for me to be here and to be part of this environment.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virimi Vakatawa, who could make his Fiji debut against England on Saturday (14:10 BST), says he never dared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-678928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}