Interview: Former Scotland U20s captain joins SA's Bulls Daisies in landmark move

Fiona Cooper has become the first overseas player to sign for a South African professional women’s team with her addition to the Isuzu Bulls Daisies squad this season.

The Isuzu Bulls Daisies became the first fully professional women’s team in South Africa in 2023, with a full-time programme housing many of the Springboks Women including Libbie Janse van Rensburg, Chumisa Qawe, Faith Tshauke and Asiza Mkiva.

Cooper’s signing to the South African league is pretty momentous. Both in what it represents for the ambition of South African women’s rugby, the success and promise which could be seen at the 2025 World Cup, and for the growing opportunities in the game for female players across the world.

Cooper, with her origins in Fife, Scotland is a former Scotland U20s captain and no stranger to playing rugby on foreign soil. Through further education she has had the opportunity to play for the eminent Ponsonby Rugby Club in Auckland, New Zealand, then Atlanta Harlequins in the USA during her Masters studies.

Before her move to Pretoria, and after playing on many different continents, in 2023 Cooper returned to the UK where a season’s worth of performances at Wasps earned her a call up to Scotland. She also turned out for Trailfinders Women in the transition to the PWR, but a dislocated tendon in her ankle sidelined Cooper for the best part of two years, and with that she admits perhaps her Scotland aspirations.

The urge to look abroad for another playing opportunity was strong.

“With South Africa (I thought) I could go and see if there’s something else to try, just as a bit of a final hurrah to end my rugby career,” said the forward.

“I’d spoken to some people about Hong Kong China, and then South Africa came up as an option, and I felt, well, no one’s really done it, so it might be interesting to be the first to try it.

“I watched South Africa at the World Cup and saw how much the game has come on in the last few years, so I felt like it would be an exciting place to go and be competitive because it’s a rugby nation with really good players so at least I’ll still be able to learn and improve my rugby.”

The opportunity with Isuzu Bulls Daisies came about almost through chance. Cooper had been out in South Africa for work and was doing some coaching at the same time. She worked alongside a coach who had just landed a role at the Isuzu Bulls Daisies and nudged to see if there was an opportunity there.

“She [the coach] told me to speak to the Director and see if it’s something that could happen. So I called and he said we could give it a shot, and that’s kind of how it materialised. It was really a lot of luck.”

And it was as simple as that. Cooper maintains full-time remote work but also embraces the full-time programme provided by the Bulls Daisies, who are the premier and foremost professional set up in South Africa’s Women’s Super League having won the past three titles.

Five weeks into pre-season she reflects that it’s certainly been an adjustment.

“The rugby world is so small, so normally when you go to a new team, you know at least four or five people on the team. You’ve probably played with them before or something. To have everybody completely new, it’s a challenge to kind of adjust and understand how everybody plays and everything.”

Not least is the transition from a winter sport in the northern hemisphere to playing a summer sport in the southern hemisphere- the tan lines for a start.

“We had our first warm-up game on the weekend, which was 33 degrees in crazy heat. I was so bad, I did not play good rugby at all. I think some of my team are probably like, who’s this girl? Can she even play? So, it’s definitely been quite an adjustment that way.”

Yet despite some initial hiccups Cooper is glowing about the programme so far.

“The intensity is great. I really enjoy training four days a week and having a lot of time playing rugby. And if you watch the Springboks, a significant chunk of the Springbok team are at the Bulls. I’m going to learn so much from them because they’re world-class rugby players, that have a lot of fight and a lot of passion.”

Moving clubs and countries consistently is not a path not many international or professional players go down, but Cooper admits her time spent in America reinvigorated her playing career.

Whilst studying at St Andrews University, Cooper was awarded the Robert T Jones scholarship (aka a Bobby Jones fellow), that took her abroad to Emory University in Atlanta, to complete her Masters. Perhaps not immediately known for its rugby, Atlanta proved pivotal in her rugby career development.

“They (the US) have an amazing culture and I learnt so much about how to build team unity. They had this awesome rule, which I now use whenever I’m coaching. If you say sorry, because women say sorry too much, when they’re practising something, you had to run the length of the field, and they had a giant cut out of Beyonce and you had to kiss Beyoncé and be like, ‘I ain’t sorry!’, and then run back.

“Which is very Atlanta, but also reminded you to be a bit of a badass feminist, you know, because why am I saying sorry? I’m at training, you’re meant to make mistakes. That was something the team had.

“I learnt so much and they would always have culture sessions and leadership sessions, and I’m really big on that. I think travelling to different places, you see how different team cultures kind of gel and how people learn to play with each other.

“I’d fallen out of love a little bit with rugby and the US really brought it back for me around, like, team spirit and everything, which is really awesome.”

Non-domestic players are not new in the women’s game. They are a cornerstone of the PWR currently. However, traffic usually flows from southern hemisphere to north. Cooper is trailblazing in this sense, as one of the first big British signings to head to South Africa, or even the southern hemisphere.

“South Africa and the women’s game has been a bit isolated from Europe, whereas especially in the UK, there’s more crossover. And now the Kiwis are coming to England and the Canadians with some South Africans playing in the PWR as well.”

When asked from all her international travel and rugby experience, where has been her favourite place she has played, she answered, as any proud Scot would do.

“My favourite place to play is Scotland. It’s miserable weather. You really dig in. The team I play for- shout out Corstorphine Cougars- are a bit of a motley crew, but they’re very competitive and have a few players in the national squad now.

“But of course, I’ve loved each place that I’ve been uniquely. It still doesn’t quite match, like playing at home. I have to also probably say the Atlanta Harlequins for reigniting the spark in rugby and giving me another ten years in the sport.”

South Africa’s Women’s Super League got under way on 14th February 2026. The successor to the Women’s Premier Division, the Daisies opened their season away to Border Ladies, winning 100-0. Read this week’s Women’s Super League round up by Rugby 365.