Patiliai Tuidraki, a former Fijian and Japanese rugby international, has died of cardiac failure in Fiji, Japanese rugby officials said Saturday.
He was 33. Tuidraki collapsed in Fiji on Thursday evening and died when he was being taken to hospital.
He joined the Toyota Motors corporate team in 1995 as its first foreign player and earned the first of his 19 caps for Japan in 1997.
He was a member of Japan's squad at the '99 World Cup.