Sevu Reece has revealed he was extremely close to choosing to play for Fiji instead of the All Blacks before his breakout season in 2019.
Speaking to media ahead of this weekend's clash with Fiji in Dunedin, the eight-Test winger said he had always dreamed of representing his birth country while growing up there.
“Growing up in Fiji, watching sevens and fifteens and that was obviously a goal, just like any other New Zealand kid, you grow up wanting to be an All Black,” he said.
“For me, growing up you obviously wanted to play for Fiji and it’s not until you actually get out of Fiji and you start to grow a bit older, I watched the All Blacks and watched Joe Rokocoko and Sitiveni Sivivatu, all those guys, and you’re like, ‘man, I want to be that one day’.”
Reece moved to New Zealand from Fiji in 2014 as a schoolboy. He made a slow start to his career with Waikato and an overseas deal with Connacht was torn up due to a domestic violence case - which he was later discharged without conviction for - before he joined Tasman in 2018.
Reece would then go on to join the Crusaders after a career-ending injury to All Black Israel Dagg and enjoy a breakout campaign in 2019, when he finished as Super Rugby's top try-scorer and helped the Crusaders to a third-straight title.
His performances would ultimately lead him to matching his boyhood idols in cracking the All Blacks later that year but Reece told reporters today during his rapid rise, there were discussions about him representing his homeland at the World Cup in Japan too.
“Fiji came along and obviously, the head coach from Fiji [then John McKee], he was messaging me just before the World Cup and I was in a position where I didn’t know if I was going to make the All Blacks," Reece said.
“He gave me a call, was going to catch up with him, but we were just texting and to be fair. I was probably about this close to playing for Fiji because the talent we’ve got here in New Zealand is crazy.”
Reece went on to beat that talent and earn his place but he said even then it wasn't an easy call.
“It was a very tough decision,” he added. “Because I’m only 24 and I’ve got a plan, I could wait a few more years and just put the hard work in and hopefully crack the All Blacks, but, yeah, it happened a lot faster for me.”
With such prospects still a recent memory, the All Blacks' next two fixtures mean plenty to the 24-year-old.
“It’s going to be almost a dream come true if I get the opportunity to play on Saturday and play against some very close mates of mine that I grew up playing with,” Reece said of squaring off against Fiji at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
“Fiji are talented boys and the rugby they play is exciting to watch, as we can see in sevens, and they bring that over to fifteens.”
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