Bai tackles youth unemployment
After a glittering 16-year professional career Fijian rugby legend Seremaia Bai has taken on his next life challenge; tackling his country’s unemployed youth. Logan Savory reports.
Seremaia Bai acknowledges he’s one of the lucky ones. The 43-year-old points out to anyone who will listen that just 2% of Fijian rugby players end up playing professionally.
Bai is part of that 2% who got to head off-shore and live out many Fijian kids’ rugby dream.
In fact, Bai did so for near on 16 years. Rugby provided him a ticket out of what he says was a tough upbringing.
‘‘But what happens to the other 98%?’’ is the question Bai now asks regularly.
He’s concerned about unemployment amongst youth in Fiji. ‘‘It’s bothering me that they are not aware of life beyond just playing rugby.’’
In fact, Bai is just as concerned about the number of retired Fijian rugby players he says are returning from overseas contracts broke and not knowing what they are going to do with their lives.
Bai was born in Nausori – a town 19km out of Suva – to a single mum. It was a humble beginning.
By 15 he had left school with little to no education to fall back on.
He got his break as teenager when he was spotted playing domestically in Fiji.
The Eastern Suburbs club in New South Wales, Australia signed him to play in the Shute Shield competition in 1999.
By 2000, at just 20 years old, he was selected to debut for Fiji in a test match against Japan, before then heading to Wales for another gig.
Although it was the following year when he broke his ankle playing for Fiji in a test against Tonga, that provided some life perspective for Bai.
The injury had the potential to end his career, although he felt no one seemed to care.
‘‘When I got injured none of my friends came and visited me, none of my family came to visit me, none of teammates came to visit me.’’
It was a realisation he was on his own if he wanted to try to make something of his rugby career and his life for that matter.
‘‘That moment was a lifechanger.’’
He went about a 10-month recovery before eventually finding a rugby lifeline at the bottom of New Zealand.
In 2002, Bai was signed on a twoyear contract with the Southland Stags to play in the NPC.
Bai was still limping when arrived in Invercargill as he went about resurrecting his promising rugby career.
Over the next two years, he became a popular member of the Southland rugby community.
By day, he worked alongside a young Jimmy Cowan helping the then groundsman Brian Johnstone at Rugby Park.
By night, he trained with the Invercargill Blues club under the tutelage of former All Black Simon Culhane who coached the team alongside David Henderson.
Bai kicked a 77th-minute conversion to help Invercargill Blues win the Galbraith Shield title in 2003. The year before he had kicked a late conversion against Northland to ensure the Stags avoided NPC relegation.
Bai will forever be grateful for what the people of Southland did for his career.
Most importantly the Stags medical staff helped sort his troublesome ankle. He adds Rugby Southland showed plenty of compassion when he was offered a contract to play in Japan in 2004.
Bai had signed with the Stags for a third season in 2004 with the hope he would be picked up by the Highlanders. That Highlanders call never came.
Then Rugby Southland chief executive Roger Clark agreed to release him from his 2004 contract to take up the deal in Japan as Bai strived to do what was best for his family financially.
‘‘I absolutely loved my time in Invercargill, they really looked after me. If it wasn’t for that I don’t know if I would have come this far. That’s why Southland is a special place for me.’’
Bai’s time in Southland was a launching pad towards a remarkable professional rugby career that included stints playing in Japan, France, and England.
He amassed 94 games for Clemont in France before playing another 93 games for fellow French team Castres.
Bai likes to remind people he’s the only Fijian to win two championships in France.
The kid from Nausori will forever go down as one of Fiji rugby’s greats.
He doesn’t shy away from the fact rugby has set him and his family up financially.
‘‘I was a high school dropout. I finished school when I was 15 and I had a tough family upbringing. The house I have is from rugby, the car I have, it’s from rugby.
‘‘Also part of me as a person, it’s from rugby. Rugby is my life.’’
During his playing days, Bai had one eye on the future. It was always his and his family’s intention to return to Fiji live.
While living in France he bought land in Fiji with the thought of making a living from farming in his home country post rugby.
When the midfield back finally hung up his boots in 2016 aged 37 they did return to Fiji to live.
Bai concedes he wasn’t completely thrilled with what he saw.
‘‘I was brought up in a village, and it was very simple. I came back and saw that nothing had changed. Even some guys who make it [in rugby] they come back broke and don’t know what to do.
‘‘That bothers me. I said, ‘I’ve got to do something’, otherwise the next generation of young players in Fiji will be following the same stuff we went through.’’
Bai says many young Fijians are not pushed or motivated to become self-reliant. Instead, they live in large family settings and rely heavily on their parents.
‘‘The way I see it, it really cripples the mindset. They are always dependent on their parents or someone else to make decisions.’’
It’s sparked another life challenge for Bai. It’s a quest that just might have a bigger impact on his home nation than the 53 tests he amassed across 16 years.
The now 43-year-old father of five is trying to aid promising Fijian players as they chase their own professional rugby dream.
One of those players is Vereniki Tikoisolomone. He joined the Taranaki NPC squad in New Zealand in 2021 and this year was called into the Highlanders as injury cover. But for Bai, his work now is just as much about helping set up that 98% who won’t play professionally.
‘‘I thought, ‘I have to come up with a better solution to this’,’’ he says about Fiji’s youth unemployment.
Bai launched the Agro-Rugby Programme. It’s a programme that mixes rugby development with agriculture training.
The programme helps young Fijians prosper pre, during, and post their rugby playing days.
A block of land in rural Nausori, Fiji that Bai bought during his playing days is now where his rugby proteges learn about working in agriculture with entrepreneurial training also added in.
At the moment there is about 15 working on the farm. They plant about 2000 taro plants per month. The hope is to find overseas markets to sell to, to grow the farming operation and in turn the Agro-Rugby Programme.
At the same time, Bai is searching for opportunities offshore for his players to potentially find work while at the same time developing as rugby players.
On top of the farm work, Agro-Rugby holds twice-weekly rugby training sessions, as well as weight sessions added in.
Bai’s quest is to not just nurture their rugby talent but to help them become better people.
To help them understand there is land around them that they can make a living from.
Bai has gone as far as starting up his own rugby club, the Eastern Saints, in his quest to make a difference.
He says many Fijian rugby clubs train every afternoon.
However, Bai wants youngsters to mix training with work commitments.
The Eastern Saints train just two days a week – Tuesday night and Thursday night – just as he did while playing for the Invercargill Blues club two decades ago.
‘‘For me, I’m doing this for the social development of our country while using rugby as a vehicle for change, for positive change.’’
Whatever the end result, Bai’s legendary status on the field has now transferred to off it as well.