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A fresh rugby season has arrived and the Next Phase Rugby Player of the Month is one of those individuals who will stoke excitement early in 2026-27. Lavinia (“Lavi”) Lomu out of United Rugby Club in Utah has spent the summer playing high-level ball with her home club, the Utah Cannibals and at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center as a member of the USA Pathways. As the senior readies to co-captain Skyridge High School into the Utah Youth Rugby fall 7s season, she’ll also be readying for her first USA appearance when she travels to Dakar, Senegal, for the Youth Olympic Games. [lead photo: Jackie Finlan / @TheRugbyBreakdown]
Lomu’s siblings were all playing soccer while she was growing up. She tried volleyball, but the sport didn’t suit, so dad got involved.
“My dad grew up playing and wanted us to try it out, so he’s the one who put us all in rugby,” Lomu said. “I started playing co-ed [tackle] in 2nd or 3rd grade, and just playing with the boys, it wasn’t my favorite thing ever.”
It wasn’t “love at first hit” for Lomu, who described herself then and now as a “girly girl.” But a shift began in 6th grade when Lomu joined United’s first all-girls’ middle school team.
“All my teammates were so welcoming, and the environment was really fun,” Lomu said of the hook. “So starting that [team] and learning how to be a leader was my way of starting to like it more.”
The smaller, faster Lomu learned the game from wing, and from her older sister, Jordis, who is four years older. The Dartmouth College senior is a USA Pathway member and most recently attended the USA U23 camp at Chula Vista in July.
“My sister started considering more opportunities and was going on college visits and stuff,” Lomu said of a shift in outlook. “It pushed me to work harder, because [until then] I thought of rugby as a hobby and wasn’t really looking beyond that.”
Even though the sisters never attended high school at the same time, they did get some 15s together. In 2023, Lavi was the only 8th grader called up High School Club 15s National Championship squad that traveled to North Carolina.
Photo: Jackie Finlan
From there, Lomu started booting up with select sides like the Utah Cannibals, an elite outfit that plays 7s and 15s around the country and abroad. She also linked up with the USA South Panthers for her first trip to Tropical 7s, another major venue for high-profile 7s and scouting. That connection again occurred through her father, Moe, who was already heading to Florida with Jordis and the Cannibals U18 team, and reached out to teams for a roster spot for his younger daughter.
“My dad is one of the coaches as well,” Lomu said of the current United staff. “He’s really helped grow me as a player. When I first started out with United, I had a different coach, and then when my dad stepped in, it was like a whole new game for us. We didn’t do so well our first year, but our second year, we just came out like monsters and killed it.
“But, yeah, ever since my dad started coaching me, I feel like I’ve grown a lot more because he does individual trainings with me and we watch rugby a lot together,” she added. “And he gives me good feedback after my games as well. Just having him there at all my tournaments and games has really helped me grow as a player.”
Beginning at the U14 age grade, Lomu has been a regular at Tropicals, NAIs and 15s nationals, but the 2025-26 season was special. Utah Youth Rugby launched its single-school 7s season and Lomu helped Skyridge to that title. The weekend prior, Skyridge was one of four Utah teams that traveled to Meridian, Idaho, for the regional high school 7s tournament, and won that trophy, too. A month later, Lomu swapped into the Cannibals kit for a trip to the New York 7s, where the select side won the U18 Premier division in impressive fashion.
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The springtime brought 15s and also newness for Lomu.
“This year for 15s, I started at center, but then our starting 10 got hurt in the first game of the season,” she said of United’s Ariane Moea’i, who represented the USA at the 2025 Global Youth 7s Games in New Zealand. “Our 9, 10 and 15 all run the same thing in our system, and I had to step up into one of those playmaking positions. So I started playing fullback, which was actually really fun.”
Although unable to compete on the pitch, Moea’i remained an important mentor for Lomu.
“She really helped me know what I was doing, and same with the coaches,” she said. “I really needed their help when I was figuring out how to play 15. I’m good on attack and chasing and stuff like that, but I didn’t know where to be on the field for defense, or when to come up on offense.
“Flyhalf is probably my favorite position, though,” Lomu said of her role during summer 7s. “I love running what’s going on on the field, and I feel like I’m a good playmaker. I can communicate to my teammates where I want the ball and what to do during the game.”
Lomu embraces teammate at nationals / Photo: Jackie Finlan
Utah was home to two very important and high-profile girls’ high school events this spring/summer. First was the single-school and high school club 15s national tournaments. In recent years, including 2026, United has fallen just short of leaders Belmont Shore and the Majestics, but the brand of rugby it’s playing is the same pacey, physical, creative, pioneering type of ball. Lomu featured particularly well for United, which finished third after losing its semifinal 24-19 to Belmont Shore and then beating SacPAL 38-15.
“Lavi was a huge reason behind our success last season,” United and Cannibals coach Colin Puriri praised the then-junior. “Being one of our drivers in 15s, she has great vision and decision-making; add her pace and skills, she becomes one of our best finishers. She’s feisty on defense and doesn’t like getting beaten, so she brings a lot of attitude to her defensive style. So looking forward to her leadership this season and watching her take her game to another level!”
Lomu rolled that success into summer 7s, which culminated in an NAI 7s U18 Elite championship with the Utah Cannibals.
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“Our hardest opponent was Belmont, but we really wanted to beat the winners from last year, Majestics,” Lomu said. “We practiced really hard all summer, and a lot of my teammates went to the USA camp this year, so we spent the whole summer just playing together. I think that helped us a lot to win NAIs, because our communication and everything was just there at the perfect time.
“Isa [Uyema], she’s always there when I need to offload or I need support, and I’m always there for her on defense or anything,” she said of a special 7s connection. “We’re both the playmakers of the team and we just connect in that way. We have good comms. I tell her when I want the ball, she tells me when she needs it. We’re both the captains this year, and we’ve been together since that first United middle school team and she also came to the USA South Panthers with me, too. We’ve grown a lot with each other.”
Her performances earned her an invite to the U18 USA Pathways 7s Camp at Chula Vista in August. She was joined by five other Cannibals, including Uyema.
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“Everyone in Utah plays a similar style, but the Utah Cannibals especially like to play the Fijian style, where we move the ball. We don’t run straight into defense,” Lomu said of the attractive brand of ball that Utah plays. “We like to play a slow-fast-slow game instead of just running it up all the time. I feel like that’s the difference between us and a lot of other teams, because we have a really good system and we stick to it.
“And then at the USA camp, I learned that that’s what they like as well — getting the ball out wide and hitting the outside instead of just playing in all the time,” she continued. And I feel like our team, and Utah in general, does a really good job at that, and the physicality is really good as well.”
Lomu was running at scrumhalf during the USA Pathway camp, and so her individual feedback revolved around just learning that decision-making role better. Still, she impressed enough to earn selection to the team that will represent the USA at the Youth Olympics Games in Senegal.
“This summer has opened up my eyes to so much more,” she said. “The USA camp has shown me that there’s so much more to rugby outside of the U.S., so I want to try to push myself harder so I can play out of country.”
In the meantime, Lomu is focusing on the impending single-school 7s season in Utah with Skyridge. She also has eyes on college rugby and has started conversations with programs.
Photo: Jackie Finlan
“I’ve been talking a lot to the Ivy League, especially Harvard, Dartmouth and Brown, but some of the other schools, like Army and AIC, also stick out to me,” she said. “I just don’t know which one yet, but I do know I do want to play rugby in college and beyond that.”
In terms of goals for her final season in high school, it’s about closure and setting up the future.
“I really want to win every tournament we go to, especially nationals, because I’ve never won it in all the years I’ve been going,” Lomu said. “We place 3rd every year, so I just want one time for us to win the national title. And also our state 15s championship, I’ve also never won that. We always come up short, so really my goal is to win both of those. … For my team, I really just want to push them. I want their mindsets to be in that winning mode, too.
“It feels so surreal,” she thought back on her middle school days with United and the Cannibals. “I can’t believe I’m graduating already. It felt like such a short time since I started, and now that I’m finishing it, the sport has grown so much since then. Our numbers have multiplied a lot, and it’s just nice to see when I am gone, there are still girls there to run the team and be leaders as well.”
To learn more about Lavi Lomu and fellow high schoolers nationwide looking to play rugby in college, download the Next Phase Rugby app on the Apple App Store or Google Play and search “Next Phase Rugby.” For more information, visit nextphaserugby.com or e-mail greg@nextphaserugby.com.