Tokyo Olympics: Rugby Sevens results and news

Dietrich Roache might just be the quickest man in Australia you have never heard of. So fast, in fact, he denied a national sprint champion a spot on Australia’s Olympic team.

Wallaby Samu Kerevi as toddler with his late mother Salaseini

Dietrich Roache might just be the quickest man in Australia you have never heard of.

Just ask Trae Williams – the former national sprint champion – who recorded the same time of 4.59sec over 40 metres as Roache and ended up missing selection for Tokyo because of the fleet-footed youngster.

Even better, had Roache not scored a free ticket to the Sydney Sevens in 2018 – a World Series tournament Australia won – he would never have been in Tokyo.

“I only started playing rugby union three years ago,” he told News Corp.

Sydney's Dietrich Roache will make his Olympic debut in Tokyo. Pic: Supplied

“Around about the 2018 Sydney Sevens I went to that one. I just went for a family day, I went out to watch and just fell in love with the sport and ever since then I’ve been working pretty hard.

“I think just the speed of the game, the atmosphere, we took it out that year too. When I saw Australia win, I was like, ‘wow, this is what I really want to do.’

“It was pretty exciting seeing them on the big stage and it’s where it all started for me.”

Roache is the story Australian rugby must listen to and heed the lessons of.

The recently turned 20-year-old grew up playing rugby league and wanted to follow in the footsteps of his Samoan father who played for the Raiders, before later playing rugby union for the the Parramatta Two Blues.

Inspired by Australia’s Sydney Sevens triumph, the western Sydney boy started playing for the Two Blues.

It was not long before he was spotted playing by assistant coach Scott Bowen.

Since then the fleet-footed winger, who can ball-play if necessary, has been a revelation for the Australian side.

With western Sydney fighting for survival in the Sydney Shute Shield competition though, the next Roache could be missed.

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It is something Roache finds staggering about rugby in Sydney.

“My dad’s pretty involved with rugby in Western Sydney,” he says.

“He coaches the colts team we have and he’s on the board. We have lots of chat about that.

“I believe the best talent comes from the west and if we’re going to kill it, I just don’t think it’s good for the sport of rugby.”

Sadness behind rugby star’s Olympic selection

Given up by his parents, forced to flee from coups in the Solomon Islands and Fiji, and landing in Australia as a refugee, this is the untold story of Samu Kerevi.

In another life, Kerevi – the ­destructive Wallaby who will pull on the gold jersey again at the Tokyo Olympics – would have ended up in jail like several members of his ­father’s family.

“They had a really tough upbringing,” Kerevi says.

“Those street kids, it was really tough for them, and they didn’t go down the right path. They’ve all been to jail. One of my cousins is in jail now, and has been for 14 years, and I grew up with him.”

Were it not for his late mother ­Salaseini, who believed her son would be better off living with his grandparents and escaping the “rough” ­upbringing destined ahead, Kerevi could well have followed the path of his cousins and ended up in prison.

His mother’s love handed Kerevi a chance at a better life.

“For my mum to give up basically my whole childhood, I know that would be tough and she used to tell me how tough that was for her,” he says. “I guess because I was so young, Islanders, Fijians, you get to spend a lot of time with your grandparents and you grow up in a big family.

“My grandfather and grandmother – they’re not actually my grandparents, they’re my grandmother’s sister’s family – they raised me. In Australia they’d be a great uncle and aunt, but for us in Fiji, they are your grandparents.

“My great uncle, he was the first one to hold me. I don’t know where my dad was, but he named me and he’s the guy that raised me.”

When his grandfather was sent on assignment to the Solomon Islands, Kerevi went with him.

“I was so young, I don’t think I knew what was going on,” he says.

“I think I just thought we were going down to the beach. I was about six years old.

“We were there for a year before the coup started a year later, and we had to get evacuated from the Solomon Islands to Fiji, but there was a coup in Fiji, so we fled to Brisbane.

“It was a blessing in disguise that all that stuff happened because we ended up being in Brisbane and getting a refugee visa.”

Samu Kerevi celebrates scoring for Australia at the World Cup.

Kerevi is one of the many Australian rugby stars largely lost to the game for financial reasons.

The 27-year-old, who played the last of his 33 Tests for the Wallabies in their World Cup quarter-final loss to England in 2019, joined Japanese Top League powerhouse Suntory after that tournament.

At the time, his decision to leave Australian rugby at the peak of his powers was bemoaned as another money-fuelled decision driven by his player agent Anthony Picone. Former NRL star turned Wallabies sensation Marika Koroibete is the latest set to leave Australian rugby at season’s end.

Yet, as Kerevi explains, for Fijians and other Pasifika players, their time frame for earning money is a matter of life and death for family members back home, where a lot of their salaries go.

“It’s (sending money home) at the forefront of everything, those people, everyone helped us from Fiji to be here,” says Kerevi.

“There’s a thousand Marikas in Fiji waiting for the opportunity, and a guy like Marika, I’m pretty plastic compared to Marika.

“Marika, he’s a village boy, a real village boy and when you spend time with him he’s still a village boy in the way he carries himself.

“So any opportunity we do get, we’re so grateful, and we’ve got to make it count.

“It’s hard for Fijians after footy as well. Aussies, they get great opportunities after rugby through media or other jobs and corporate gigs, but people don’t really think about what’s next for Marika.

“They want to see him wear the gold jersey, but after that jersey, who will support him and his family and those back home? Are you going to be there to do that?

“He has that at the back of the mind.

Australian Samu Kerevi as child with his late mother Salaseini. Picture: Instagram

Samu Kerevi has had an inspiring rise to the Aussie Olympic team.

“We want to play for our country. But at the end of the day it’s not going to last long term.”

Kerevi is not earning a cent by playing for Australia at the Olympics, but his presence – even if he is not playing big minutes – promises to be a game-changer for a squad short on big-match experience.

After being told by coach Tim Walsh he had been selected for the Games less than a month after joining the squad, Kerevi broke the news to his father, Nimilote, who was sitting by the grave of his mother, who died earlier in the year.

“I told my dad and he was sitting next to her grave and he called me and shed tears and how happy he was and how happy she would be,” Kerevi says.

“That’s the bittersweet thing for me. I don’t think it’s hit me yet.

“It’s moments like this that you want your parents there to witness it and say they’re proud of you, and to not get that from Mum is tough.

“It’s still pretty fresh and it sucks she’s not here, but the whole family got around me.”