He started all five games as France regained the Six Nations in 2025, and was selected in their provisional squad for this year’s tournament.<\/p>\n
However, he was withdrawn from the squad earlier this week. It is unclear whether that was for sporting or medical reasons.<\/p>\n
“Uini is a wonderful person who really mattered both as a player and as a man within the group,” France’s forwards coach William Servat said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“Our thoughts are with his family, his loved ones, his children, his wife – that’s what matters today.<\/p>\n
“We’re all, of course, affected and saddened by what’s happening, but he’s a strong man, and we’re convinced that he’ll bounce back quickly.”<\/p>\n
Having been spotted at a rugby 10s tournament in Hong Kong, Atonio signed for La Rochelle for the 2011-12 season and remained with the club for his entire career.<\/p>\n
He helped his side win promotion to the Top 14 in 2014, and was part of a squad that reached three successive Champions Cup finals between 2021 and 2023, winning the title in the latter two years.<\/p>\n
Atonio played six times this season, with his first appearance coming in early December and the last against Harlequins in the Champions Cup on 18 January.<\/p>\n
“In Blue, just as in the La Rochelle jersey, Uini Atonio has been – and will remain – a great prop in the broadest sense of the term, in his stature, his humility and his sunny disposition,” the French clubs’ body the LNR said.<\/p>\n
Source: RhinoEasy News<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He started all five games as France regained the Six Nations in 2025, and was selected in their provisional squad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-recommended"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}