Kikau backs Potter’s return

Fiji star Viliame Kikau has backed the return of Mick Potter as Bati coach after Fiji National Rug-by League (FNRL) executive chairman Rajesh Singh an-nounced the former NRL and Super League mentor would take charge of the team for Rugby League World Cup 2026 and beyond.

Potter, who achieved success with Catalans and St Helens in the Super League before stints with Wests Tigers and the Bulldogs in the NRL, over-saw Fiji’s greatest moment at international level when they eliminated New Zealand at the quarterfinal stage of the 2017 World Cup.

Singh, who confirmed that Potter would also work with pathways in Fiji as part of the long-term coaching appoint-ment, said the Bati were aim-ing to achieve further upset results when they meet the Kangaroos and Kiwis during RLWC2026.

“As you know, Mick Potter was the coach when Fiji beat the Kiwis in the 2017 World Cup, and hopefully, we will create some history again there,” Singh said.

“Once we get his work per-mit he’ll be based in Fiji and start preparing the team.”

After making his Test debut at the 2017 World Cup, Kikau is now a senior member of the Bati team.

The Bulldogs secondrower has a relationship with Pot-ter from his longtime involve-ment with the club, where he played from 1983 to 1988 - win-ning the Dally M- in his debut season and coached since 2022.

Potter was interim Bulldogs coach in 2022 and has most recently been working with pathways coaches.

“Mick is a great coach and obviously, he’s had the job be-fore,” Kikau said.

“He knows how to communi-cate and work with us Fijians, and he’s obviously taken us to that semi-final in 2017, and he is going to do the job again.

“I think what is good is that he keeps it simple for the boys. When you get into camp, there’s a lot of boys that come from different teams and dif-ferent systems, they’re used to different structures, and he just simplifies things, so it’s easy for the boys to under-stand the game plan and all of that sort of stuff.”