Lance Corporal Rokoduguni to Play for England Rugby Union Team

British Army soldier Lance Corporal Semesa Rokoduguni will play for the England Rugby Union team in this Saturday’s (8 Nov) QBE International against New Zealand at Twickenham Stadium.

Lance Corporal Rokoduguni, aged 27, of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, who has had an outstanding season so far with Premiership club Bath Rugby, will play on the wing and be the first soldier to win a cap for England since Captain Tim Rodber in 1999.

“It’s years since something like this happened for the Army and for this to happen again through me; it’s an amazing feeling,” said the Fijian born soldier. "Following in the footsteps of someone like Tim Rodber is a massive thing, lining-up I will be over the moon but at the same time I’ll be nervous.

It’s a great opportunity for me to show what the Army can produce and offer out there on the rugby pitch. When the national anthem is playing, what will be going through my head is that I will be doing my family and the Army proud.”

Lance Corporal Rokoduguni, known as Roko to his friends and fellow players, played rugby as a schoolboy in Nausori, Fiji. However, despite his love of the game he did not stand out among his peers and so did not pursue it as a career when he left school. When British Army recruiters visited his village in 2007 he chose to join the Army as he had strong family ties to the military. 

“My great-great-grandad was in the Fijian Army and my great-grandad and now my dad,” he said. “Looking at them wearing those medals across their chest, I thought, one day I am going to get my own medals.”

In 2011 Rokoduguni served on Operation HERRICK 14 in Afghanistan, where he was attached to 4^th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland (4 SCOTS) driving the MASTIFF armoured vehicle and undertaking foot patrols during a six month deployment. It was a tough tour where he regularly encountered small arms fire and saw a fellow serviceman seriously injured by an IED.

“It doesn’t matter what cap badge you are, it doesn’t matter where you are from originally,” explained Lance Corporal Rokoduguni.

“We learn to trust each other and to work with each other, because that mate beside you or right in front of you or behind you is the exact mate you have to trust with your life.”

Since his first Army rugby performances at regiment and corps levels, he has progressed through Army 7s, Army XVs and Combined Services to Premiership rugby with Bath Rugby to representing England.

“Most of the stuff you learn from the Army you can relate to anything else, whether you are a soldier or a rugby player. 

“For instance being punctual in the Army - being there five minutes before the actual five minutes.

“In rugby too, if you’re not there for that split second or that minute, you’re missing an opportunity to score a try, and then you’re costing the team.”

Going through the Army and into rugby has been an interesting process for him.

“It helps me a lot on the rugby field, physically,” said the qualified Army Physical Training Instructor. 

“The training that we do through the Army, carrying heavy stuff and running for miles and miles and when you’re giving up, your Corporal or Sergeant shouts at you to ‘keep on going, keep on going’ – you have to keep on going.  When it comes to the rugby field and you’re hanging out, your Captain says ‘hey come on, get up, you need to keep on going’ - it helps me a lot.”