Fiji have announced that former Scotland head coach Vern Cotter will take the reigns as head coach of the national side come the end of the current club season.
Cotter is currently working at Top 14 outfit Montpellier, but the Kiwi will leave his role at the end of the campaign and link up with the Flying Fijian team.
The 57-year-old is excited to have the opportunity to coach such a talented squad and hopes they can improve in the years to come.
“Fiji Rugby has come a long way in the last few years and I am looking forward to the opportunity to work with the talent within the national teams and enhance the competitiveness of Fiji on the world stage,� he said.
Cotter takes over from former head coach John McKee who was in charge of the team from 2014 until the end of their Rugby World Cup campaign last year. In that time McKee was rather successful as he oversaw wins over first tier nations France, Scotland and Italy, as well as claiming four Pacific Nations Cups during that time.
However, his time with the side came to an unfortunate end as they crashed out of the World Cup pool stages during which they were defeated by minnows Uruguay.
Speaking on Cotter’s arrival chairman commander of Fijian Rugby Francis Kean was delighted to have a coach of his calibre come on board and is looking forward to seeing what the future holds under his charge.
“Following an extensive recruitment process with many outstanding applications, the board is pleased to have secured such an exceptional candidate in Vern Cotter for the top job of Flying Fijians head coach. Mr Cotter presented a thorough and detailed plan to take the team to new levels of success and we were impressed by his vision and expectations of what can be achieved by the programme. We believe he will drive a culture of high-performance, fitness and discipline standards that are necessary to achieve success on the global stage,� he said.
Cotter will bring a huge amount of experience to the team having led the Scots to the World Cup quarter-finals in 2015 and holding the most successful record of any Scotrish head coach in the professional era. While at club-level, he has been part of back to back Super Rugby title wins with the Crusaders, as well as leading Clermont to a Top 14 title in 2010.
Fiji will hope that he can take their extremely talented squad and help mould them into a team that fills its potential at last.
