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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BUA" data-source="post: 35411" data-attributes="member: 12">Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) appointed a former New Zealand Maori national selector Willie Hetaraka, as the new head coach of the national team for a three-year duration commencing last week.Hetaraka, 42, who was national coach of India for a similar term before taking over his new assignment in Sri Lanka, succeeds George Simpkin.Simpkin, who was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s resurgence in the IRB 2007 Rugby World Cup Asian Zone Qualifiers, vacated his job migrating to Germany in July this year.Sri Lanka saw off opposition from Thailand, Singapore, Kazakhstan and China respectively, before coming unstuck against Hong Kong during the 2007 RWC Asian Zone Qualifiers.That terrific run also enabled Sri Lanka to drastically improve its standing in the IRB world and Asian rankings.In the world ranking Sri Lanka rose from a previous lowly 64th to 43rd while in Asia they moved from ninth to fourth as of July 2006.Hetaraka, a New Zealand Maori, through 18 years of rugby coaching expertise is keen to bring professionalism of the highest order to Sri Lanka.His maiden challenge with the Islanders will be the forthcoming 20th Singer Asian Rugby Football Championship (Asiad) to be conducted from November 17-25 in Colombo.Sri Lanka has been grouped alongside Arabian Gulf, Chinese Taipei, China, Thailand and Kazakhstan in the Plate Championship of the ARFU tournament.The new Sri Lanka coach says he is itching to have a crack at Asia’s top-ranked team Japan, (ranked 20th in the world) and prove to the Asian rugby community that the so-called invincible ‘Cherry Blossoms’ are only human.Hetaraka, who has also had an impact on current New Zealand stars as dynamic wing Rico Gear and inspirational five eighth Dan Carter besides a number of other Ex- All Black caps, is determined to infuse a sense of pride in his players donning the national jersey, irrespective of their reputation.He added that no team in the world could intimidate either him or his charges as the strapping Kiwi, starts the grueling process of spearheading the island nation’s march to the zenith of Asian rugby.</blockquote>

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