Veteran Fiji stars Tuwai, Satala appointed national team coaches

Double Olympic gold medalist Jerry Tuwai and former Sevens Rugby World Cup winner Viliame Satala have officially been handed coaching roles at the Fijian national rugby 7s team.

Fiji Rugby Union Chief Executive Officer Mr. John O’Connor confirmed the appointment of the two revered stars after discussions with head coach Ben Gollings.

While the 2005 world cup winning Satala was officially appointed as the assistant coach for the Fiji Airways Fijian 7s team, two-time Olympian and gold medal winner Tuwai will take on the role of player/coach to develop his coaching.

Satala, known as 'The Stretcher' during his playing days because of his bone-crunching tackles, will focus on the forwards, skills and support with talent identification and mentoring of players.

“This is a totally new approach from Head Coach Ben Gollings. Our two previous coaches engaged assistant coaches from abroad as such we are so thankful to Gollings for his confidence and trust in our local upcoming coaches,”

“We all know that both Satala and Tuwai are great players and have coaching accreditation and their appointments will help them in their coaching pathway. We are excited about the appointments and the impact the two will have on the national players,” O’Connor is quoted on the Fiji website.

On his part, head coach Gollings expressed his delight about the appointments as he stated that he is looking forward to working with two great Fijian 7s legends.

“Satala is a well-respected member of the rugby community who represented Fiji in 7s and 15s as well as having a successful career playing overseas. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience around the 7s game and can share this with the current of group of players in terms of the required standards on and off the field.”

“Tuwai is a fantastic player and continues to be so. Having talked with him, he is very keen to look at coaching as part of his future and we feel this is a good time to support his development and transition.”

The CEO Fiji Rugby also confirmed that World Rugby Hall of Famer Osea Kolinisau was offered the opportunity to be part of the Coaching panel but he had respectfully declined it.