Taqele Naiyaravoro: A 'box office' signing for Glasgow - Dodson

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Taqele Naiyaravoro of the Waratahs charges in to the defence during the Super Rugby match against the Queensland RedsImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,

Waratahs winger Taqele Naiyaravoro is on his way to Glasgow when the Super Rugby season ends

Glasgow Warriors fans will benefit from the preparatory work done by Scottish Rugby to attract the Fijian winger Taqele Naiyaravoro, claims Mark Dodson.

The 23-year-old, 6ft 5in Waratahs star arrives at Scotstoun this summer.

Scottish Rugby's chief executive said: "Four or five years ago, there wasn't a queue of people knocking at the door wanting to play in Scottish rugby.

"But that guy is probably one of the biggest box office draws in world rugby and he's chosen to come to Glasgow."

Dodson added: "We spotted Taqele some time ago.

"Gregor Townsend (Warriors' head coach) was down in New South Wales and realised there was a chance he could fit in because we knew about approaches from clubs for Sean Maitland and Niko Matawalu.

"We spotted him just before he broke into the Waratahs first team and started to destroy defences.

"We do a lot of due diligence on a player and Gregor in particular looks at the human being.

"Scott Johnson (Scotland's director of rugby) went out and spoke to his family and explained what we were about. We show people love when we go out there. We don't just say, 'we'll write the cheque', we spend an awful lot of time preparing the ground."

Dodson says there has been an improvement on recent years when "there was no parade of agents" outside his door at Murrayfield.

"The best players were all gone by the time we got to the market," he admitted.

"Usually we were late going to the market and we were paying bottom dollar. Now we go early and we pay reasonable dollar. We get ahead of the wave."

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