Rupeni Caucaunibuca Moves To France

Fijian try-scoring machine Rupeni
Caucaunibuca has quit New Zealand rugby to take up a two-year contract with the French side Agen.

The brilliant but injury-prone winger has accepted an offer that
will dwarf
his New Zealand salary, believed to be less than 100,000 New Zealand
(61,000
US) dollars for playing for both the Auckland Blues in the Super 12
championship and Northland in the national provincial championship.

“He is the best winger in the world,” said Agen acting
president Laurent
Lubrano, adding his club had been chasing Caucaunibuca for more than
a year.
However, the Blues are ambivalent about losing the Fijian flyer
with chief
executive David White describing him as “high maintenance”,
the New Zealand
Herald reported today (Saturday).

Caucau, as he is known, scored some of the outstanding tries at
the World
Cup, including a brilliant solo effort for Fiji against France
shortly before
he was sinbinned for fighting.
He had made no secret he was unhappy with his New Zealand deal and
had been
courted by several European clubs, with England side Newcastle
sending star
fly-half Jonny Wilkinson to New Zealand earlier in the year in a bid
to lure
the 23-year-old to ply his trade there.

Over three seasons at the Blues he was repeatedly sidelined with
injury and
managed just 14 Super 12 appearances, averaging a try a game.

His campaign this year in the southern hemisphere provincial
tournament was
over early when he was ruled out with a major shoulder injury that
has
required surgery. But he still managed to score four tries, three of
them in
the Blues win over finalists the Crusaders in Christchurch.

“At times he was sensational but he didn’t play a lot of
games for us in
three years. We’re not surprised he’s going and we wish him
well,” White said.

“He took up an abnormal chunk of our medical and management
team’s time. He
was very high maintenance, not just with injuries but across the
board.”

White said it was “a coach’s call” when asked if
Caucaunibuca would have
been retained by the Blues, who also have star wings Doug Howlett and
Joe
Rokocoko.

AFP – 2004.