Robert Lakopo Fruean (; born 13 July 1988, in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

) is a retired New Zealand

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

footballer. He is a midfield back and plays outside centre (13) and sometimes on the

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

. He is a former Porirua College head boy. He is of Samoan & Cook islands heritage. In 2007, he made the NZ team for the 2007 Under 19 Rugby World Championship. He led New Zealand to a championship win beating South Africa in the final. He also won the ''IRB Under-19 Player of the Year'' the same year. He made his National Provincial Championship debut for

against

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

. He played 12 games for them scoring three tries before getting struck by illness. He subsequently underwent open-heart surgery for

rheumatic heart disease Valvular heart disease is any cardiovascular disease process involving one or more of the four valves of the heart (the aortic and mitral valves on the left side of heart and the pulmonic and tricuspid valves on the right side of heart). The ...

, a potentially life-threatening inflammation of the heart. In 2009 returned to rugby, making his Super 14 debut for the

Hurricanes A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

against

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

. This was his first and last game for the Hurricanes after which he defected to the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

and played for them in the 2010 Super 14 season and the

2011 Super Rugby season The 2011 Super Rugby season was the first season of the new 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition, which involved teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Including its past iterations as Super 12 and Super 14, this was the 16t ...

. He made his 2010 ITM Cup debut for

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

, scoring two tries against Manawatu. The next week Fruean scored three more against North Harbour. He finished the season tied as the top try scorer with Lelia Masaga with 10 tries. In 2012, on the back of his third season with Canterbury, he was named

ITM Cup ITM may stand for: Education * ITM Law School, one of the professional graduate schools of ITM University * ITM-IFM, Mumbai, India * Institut Teknologi Mara, a public university in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia * Institute for Information, Tel ...

player of the year at the New Zealand Rugby Awards. He signed for Hawkes Bay Magpies in the ITM Cup in a two-year deal, starting from 2014. On 27 September 2016, Fruean signed for English club

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

in the Aviva Premiership from the 2016–17 season. In June 2017, Fruean joined Scottish Pro14 side

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

on a two-year contract, ahead of the 2017–18 season.

Post retirement

Fruen became the Hillmorton High School’s First XV coach and director of rugby in 2022. As of 2023, Fruen established and coached the Horomaka Combined First XV, which includes players from Hillmorton, Hornby, Riccarton and Middleton Grange schools and Hagley Community College. This combination team enables players from those schools to play First XV school rugby while staying at their schools.

References

External links

Chiefs profileCanterbury profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fruean, Robert 1988 births Living people New Zealand sportspeople of Samoan descent New Zealand rugby union players Rugby union wings Rugby union centres World Rugby Awards winners Crusaders (rugby union) players Hurricanes (rugby union) players Canterbury rugby union players Wellington rugby union players Chiefs (Super Rugby) players Hawke's Bay rugby union players Rugby union players from Wellington City Bath Rugby players Edinburgh Rugby players New Zealand expatriate rugby union players in Scotland People educated at Porirua College New Zealand expatriate rugby union players in England