Erin Cossey (born 29 September 1971 in
Katikati
Katikati is a town in New Zealand (North Island) located on the Uretara Stream near a tidal inlet towards the northern end of Tauranga Harbour, 28 kilometres south of Waihi and 40 kilometres northwest of Tauranga. State Highway 2 passes thro ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...
) is a New Zealand Maori former
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...
player. He played professionally in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
for Glasgow Rugby, now
Glasgow Warriors
Glasgow Warriors are a professional rugby union side from Scotland. The team plays in the United Rugby Championship league and in the European Professional Club Rugby tournaments. In the 2014–15 season they won the Pro12 title and became t ...
in the 1997-98 season; and at amateur level for
Glasgow Southern RFC. He played at
Fly-half
In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards (wearing jerseys numbered 1–8) and seven backs (numbered 9–15). In addition, there may be up to eight replacement players "on the bench", numbered 16– ...
The fly-half played for
Clarkston RFC in 1991, 1992 and 1993. When the club changed its name to Glasgow Southern, he played for the
Glasgow Southern RFC too.
Cossey played against
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
for
Bay of Plenty
The Bay of Plenty ( mi, Te Moana-a-Toi) is a region of New Zealand, situated around a bight of the same name in the northern coast of the North Island. The bight stretches 260 km from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runaw ...
province in 1996.
He was part of the professional provincial side
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...
squad for the
1997-98 season. He played for Glasgow in the pre-season friendly match against
London Scottish at Glasgow Southern's home ground of Braidholm. Cossey came on for
Cameron Little and kicked a conversion. Still, London Scottish won the match 49-15.
Cossey continued to play for Glasgow Southern in 1997 and 1998.
In 2009 he became a player-coach at Katikati Rugby & Sports Club. "The boys came and asked me to coach this year and I'd just sold my business and taken up teaching, so it was good timing," Cossey said. "Working with kids has opened my eyes so I said to the boys from the start that my whole focus is turning them into positive role models. We want to pull kids off the street and get them into rugby and keep them active and busy." Cossey taught at Katikati College.
From 2014 Cossey is now coaching New Zealand side Te Puna RFC in the Bay of Plenty province.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cossey, Erin
New Zealand rugby union players
Glasgow Warriors players
Living people
Glasgow Southern players
Clarkston RFC players
1971 births
People from Katikati
Expatriate rugby union players in Scotland
New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in Scotland
Rugby union fly-halves
Rugby union players from the Bay of Plenty Region