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Lee-Roy Atalifo becomes the latest Fijian to move into the PRO14
By Online Editors
Edinburgh have secured the signing of Fijian international tighthead prop Lee-Roy Atalifo for next season.
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The 31-year-old has won 13 caps for the Flying Fijians and makes the move to the Scottish capital following three seasons at English Championship side, Jersey Reds.
On signing with Edinburgh, Atalifo, said: “The move represents a great opportunity for me to be part of such a historic club. I’m excited to do able to continue doing what I love and to test myself against the very best in the Guinness PRO14 as well as on the European stage.
“I’m looking forward to making the move with my family and meeting my new team-mates before starting what will no doubt be a very tough pre-season. To be able to represent such a wonderful city will be a real honour.”
Coach Richard Cockerill added: “Lee-Roy is a quality tighthead who will fit in well with the culture that we have built here within the club. He has shown at international level that he can perform at the highest level and he’ll bring plenty of experience and physicality to our front-row.”
Born in Rotuma, Atalifo graduated with an engineering degree before working as a firefighter with Fiji’s National Fire Authority.
The tighthead made his international debut against the Cook Islands in June 2014 before being named in the Fiji squad for the 2015 World Cup where he featured in three pool matches against Canada, Wales and Uruguay.
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Following a short spell with Italian club Roviga Delta and at Canterbury, he joined Jersey ahead for the 2017/18 campaign and was selected in the Fiji squad for the 2019 World Cup in Japan where he came off the bench in two pool stages fixtures against Uruguay and Georgia.
He now joins fellow Fijians Viliame Mata, Eroni Sau and Mesulame Kunavula to the Scottish capital club.
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Hope now we can get some clarity about next season and beyond in terms of format. Presently between the Prem, the Champ and the 2 clubs being rebuilt we have 25 teams, but it sounds like the long term plan is 2 professional divisions of 10 clubs each. So 5 have to go. I'm curious to see how they solve for that. Simplest way I suppose would be 11 team Prem, 14 team Champ, 1 relegated from the Prem, 5 relegated from the Champ with no one promoted. Issue with that is, Ealing is probably suing to come up, and also I feel like if they are going to ring-fence below the Champ, I'd imagine the team who go down, they'd want to base that on things like financial prospects and the size of their ground rather than just who has a bad run of form next season.
Go to commentssounds like BS to me but he sure knows more about rugby than I.
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