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Fijian legend Niko Matawalu signs for Caerphilly
By Jon Newcombe
Welsh National League side Caerphilly have announced the signing of Fijian legend Niko Matawalu as backs/attack coach for the 2024/25 season.
The 35-year-old has been operating in a player/coach capacity at Pontypridd for the last two seasons, finishing his full-time professional playing career at Montauban in 2022.
The former scrum-half, who made a name for himself at Glasgow and had short stints at Bath and Exeter, lives in Caerphilly with his family.
Matawalu was capped 41 times by Fiji, appearing in two Rugby World Cups and lit up the sevens arena with his outrageous skillset.
He made his last Test appearance for the Flying Fijians against Wales in Cardiff in the 2021 November internationals.
Matawalu will coach Caerphilly alongside studying for a BSc in Rugby Coaching and Analytics at the University of South Wales.
"Niko brings a wealth of professional playing experience and knowledge to the club and aims to transfer this into his coaching," Caerphilly RFC said on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.
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I’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
Go to commentsThose are pretty good draws for the two top Aussie teams. I certainly wouldn't want my Chiefs to have a quarter final in Brisbane. None of the top teams will want the Crusaders.
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