THE chants of "Niiiikooo!
Niiiikooo!" that have been such a feature of life at Scotstoun, home of Glasgow Warriors, for the last three seasons are to fall silent this summer. The Fijian crowd favourite Niko Matawalu has announced he will be leaving the club to join Bath in England's Aviva Premiership.
Clearly Glasgow had tried to keep him beyond the end of the contract that expires this summer, and they made a "substantial" offer to try to persuade him to stay but, in the end, he decided to head off and try his luck elsewhere.
"The club and Scottish Rugby made me a very good offer, which made it a difficult decision to leave, but I was ready for a new challenge," he explained, before promising that his impending departure would not affect his commitment to Glasgow for the rest of this season.
"We have some big games coming up in the Guinness PRO12 and in Europe and if I keep working hard hopefully I'll be involved in those matches. My focus is on the Warriors and helping the club achieve success. I'm looking forward to playing for the club, and in front of the supporters, until the end of the season."
His move is something of a blow for Warriors, who picked him out of amateur ranks in Fiji after he played a starring role for his country when Scotland toured there in 2012. Following his move to Scotland, his maverick attacking style has both energised the crowd and provided the team with the flair and ability to do the unexpected - the X-factor if you like - that has often been the missing ingredient in Scottish sides.
However, there are players who matter more to the current side, especially since Henry Pyrgos has clearly cemented his place as the starting scrum-half in big games if everybody is fit and available. Ali Price and Murray McConnell are both already involved with the club and patiently waiting their chances.
While Matawalu still provides that vital element of the unexpected, these days he is just as likely to catch out his own team as the opposition, especially since the bigger, better-organised clubs have identified him as a danger man and have learned the importance of trying to mark him out of the game.
As a result, Matawalu has, for most of this season, been used as an impact player who comes off the bench and uses his speed and imagination to find holes in a tiring defence - as he did in starting and finishing the try in the away game against Toulouse. As fans at Scotstoun saw last Saturday, when he started against Munster, made a few mistakes and achieved nothing in attack, teams seem to have worked out how to defend against him once the surprise factor has gone. Play ticked along much more smoothly once Pyrgos had replaced him.
That said, he will be missed at Glasgow. There are no players in the current side who come close to matching him for entertainment value and, as a fans' favourite, he will be impossible to replace.
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