EDINBURGH RUGBY have announced the signing of Fijian lock Viliame Mata on a two-year contract.
The 24-year-old won a gold medal at the Rio Olympics with Fiji's sevens team after scoring a try against Team GB in the final.
Mata, who can also operate across the back row, is a former rugby league player who has represented his country at nine World Rugby Sevens Series events.
Read more: Cardiff Blues 34 Edinburgh 16: Away-day blues as Solomons' men kick-off with defeat
"My goal was to win the gold medal for Fiji and we got it. Now my goal is to perform well for my new team," he said after signing with the capital club.
“I am excited about signing for Edinburgh Rugby, and am looking forward to playing for the club.
“I am also excited about arriving in the city and meeting my new team mates.”
Edinburgh opened their Pro12 campaign with an underwhelming 34-16 defeat to Cardiff Blues on Saturday and head coach Alan Solomons was happy to have added more depth to his squad.
“We are delighted to welcome Bill to the club," he said.
“He is a hugely talented player who was part of the Fiji 7s team that recently won gold at the Rio Olympics.
“He is big, powerful and explosive and I believe he will add huge value to the team.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here