On the idyllic Fijian island of Kadavu, schoolchildren would hear the rumbling engines of a jet overhead and scuttle outside to gaze up at the sky.

Albert Tuisue was fascinated by planes. Where they had been and, more importantly, where they were going.

“Is that one flying to Australia? New Zealand? America?” he would ask the other kids. “One day, I will be on that plane, wherever it is going.”

It wasn’t that Tuisue ached to escape the beaches and beauty of home. It was his burning desire to make a career from rugby, to provide for his family, and in time, to pull on the storied white jersey of his country that compelled him to follow the criss-crossed streams up above.

Back then, the enormous Gloucester flanker spent most of his free time playing the game. Rugby boots and balls were too expensive, so the youngsters ran barefoot over the sand and through the foam clutching coconuts. There was simplicity and happiness in his upbringing, but there was hardship, too, no doubt. Kadavu has little infrastructure and only around 10,000 inhabitants.

“Even when we got to high school, when you ask your father to buy a rugby ball, he can’t afford it,” Tuisue tells RugbyPass. “My childhood was really tough. Growing up on the island, everything is so difficult.

“We grow our own food. We go diving and fishing whenever we can. We plant our own crops, kava and cassava, which is a root crop. We have nothing to worry about because we plant our own food, we raise our own pigs and chickens.