Simon Raiwalui (born 8 September 1974) is a Fijian Australian former rugby union player and coach. He served as the General Manager for his former French club, Racing Métro 92. He has represented Fiji on a number of occasions and most recently coached the team in 2023. He has also been included in the Pacific Islanders touring team for Europe in November 2006. His usual position was lock.
Simon left the Manly club in Sydney, Australia to join Biggar RFC in November 1994. He played for the Lanarkshire club for the 1994/95 season before returning to Manly. In 1997 he left Australia again but this time to play rugby in England. He joined the Sale Sharks, and later moved to Wales to play for Newport. He joined Saracens in 2003 and made his debut for the club in September of that year against the Newcastle Falcons. After his years at Saracens Raiwalui finished his playing career at Racing Métro 92 in France where he moved onto coaching following his retirement.[2]
He qualified for Fiji through his parents.[3] He debuted for Fiji against the New Zealand in 1997, which Raiwalui has mentioned as his best moment in rugby.[1] While with Newport, he was selected for the Fijian 1999 Rugby World Cup squad.[4] He retired from international rugby prior to the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia, though he came out of retirement for Fiji in the Pacific Nations Cup in 2006, and was then selected in the combined Pacific Nations squad that toured Europe.[5]
In late 2023 Raiwalui left the FRU[13] and joined World Rugby (WR) as a High Performance Pathways and Player Development Manager.[14]
In June 2024 Raiwalui was confirmed to take up the role of Director of Performance with the Australian Super Rugby Pacific team, the New South Wales Waratahs.[15][16][17] It is his first position with any Super Rugby team.
