PACIFIC POWER HOUSE
‘WE WILL BE STAYING WHERE WE HAVE TO STAY AND DO WHAT WE HAVE TO DO TO BECOME A GOOD TEAM. AND WE WON’T PUT UP WITH ANY COMPLACENCY WHATSOEVER.’
VERN COTTER
There can't be any doubt that Scotland's loss is Fiji's gain. Vern Cotter, installed as head coach in 2014 was delivering the sort of results Scotland hadn't seen in decades.
They were climbing the world rankings, unlucky in the extreme not to make the World Cup semi-finals in 2015 and then almost out of nowhere, it was announced in 2017 they wouldn't be extending Cotter's contract.
It was as strange as it was sudden and Cotter, with a 53 per cent win record, found himself unwanted in test football.
To prove how profligate the Scots had been, Cotter had ample club suitors eager to bring him on board, with Montpellier eventually winning his services after agreeing to make him one of the best paid coaches in the world with a package worth a reported $2 million a year.
He was crazy rich but Cotter had done the French club thing for a long time before shifting to Scotland. He was the man who had turned Clermont into the force they are now after joining them in 2006.
The Montpellier gig had a twist at least as they had a
