Lloyd Johansson (born 5 February 1985) is an Australian

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 ...

professional player of Tongan and Swedish descent. He plays for the

Melbourne Rising The Melbourne Rising was an Australian rugby union team based in Melbourne that competed in the National Rugby Championship (NRC). The team represented the rugby community in Victoria, Australia, Victoria and was organised and managed by Rugby V ...

in the

National Rugby Championship The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams, seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded in 2020 following t ...

, and his usual position is

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

Early life

Lloyd Johansson was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

to Lloyd 'Loiti' Johansson Snr and Maria ' Malia' Johansson. He played under-14 and under-16 rugby for Victoria before moving to Queensland in 2002 to complete his schooling. He was selected for the

Australian Schoolboys rugby union team The Australian Schoolboys & U18 rugby union team is the national team for schoolboy rugby union & U18 players in Australia. Considered to be the pinnacle of schoolboy & U18 rugby in Australia, the team plays in fixtures against other national r ...

and also represented Australia at Under 19 and 21 levels.

Career

An inside centre, Johannsson is noted for his hard-running and exceptional defence. He played for the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team based in Brisbane for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union ...

and captained the East Coast Aces in the now defunct

Australian Rugby Championship The Australian Rugby Championship, often abbreviated to the ARC and also known as the Mazda Australian Rugby Championship for sponsorship purposes, was a domestic professional men's rugby union football competition in Australia, which ran for onl ...

. He made his

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and som ...

debut in 2005 against the

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks, is the representative men's national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of New Zealand, which is considered the country's national sport. Famed for th ...

. Johansson had a challenging Super Rugby season in 2007. He did not see any Super 14 action during the 2008 season and was not offered a contract with the Queensland Reds for 2009. He joined Italian club MPS Viadana in an effort to reignite his career, followed by a stint in 2011 with Japanese club

Honda Heat Mie Honda Heat is a Japanese rugby union team based in Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture, Japan. The owner of the club is Honda Motor. (Suzuka is known for the Suzuka Circuit and the presence of car companies. Conveniently, the team uses Suzuka to jog ...

. In 2012 Johansson become the first Victorian player to earn a

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

contract with the

Melbourne Rebels The Melbourne Rebels were an Australian professional rugby union team based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria that competed in the Super Rugby competition. The Rebels made their debut in SANZAAR, SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. T ...

. After playing for Melbourne Harlequin in the Dewar Shield in 2013 and 2014, he was named in the

squad for the

inaugural season of 2014.

References

External links

Melbourne Harlequin profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johansson, Lloyd 1985 births Living people Australia international rugby union players Australian people of Swedish descent Australian sportspeople of Tongan descent Australian rugby union players Australian expatriate rugby union players in Italy Australian expatriate rugby union players in Japan Melbourne Rebels players Melbourne Rising players Mie Honda Heat players Queensland Reds players Rugby union centres Rugby union players from Melbourne Rugby Viadana players People educated at the Southport School 21st-century Australian sportsmen