NAME:
Namulauulu Alama Ieremia
BIRTHPLACE:
Sinamoga, Samoa
KNOWN FOR:
Assistant Coach for the Hurricanes Super Rugby team, a former Manu Samoa and All Blacks Rugby player. He was able to play for both Samoa and New Zealand due to loose international eligibility regulations which were in place before the mid-1990s. Although born in Sinamoga, Ieremia was raised in Fasito’otai, where his father Reverend Lale Ieremia worked as a minister. He is cousin to April Ieremia (former Silver Fern) and Neil Ieremia (Black Grace).
Education
Ieremia attended Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand on a government scholarship in 1991 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Geography. He started a postgraduate degree with Victoria University, but decided to put it on hold to pursue his rugby career. Ieremia went back to finish his second degree in 2003 through Massey University New Zealand. He later graduated with a Diploma in Sports Management and Coaching.
Ieremia first made the Wellington Lions NPC side in 1992 as a 21-year old, the first of eight seasons with the Lions. His crowning moment for Wellington was winning the NPC title in 2000 in his final first class match in New Zealand.
A 30-test All Black between 1994 and 2000, Ieremia had previously played internationals for Western Samoa in 1992-1993 – including a test match against the All Blacks at Eden Park in 1993. He made his test debut for New Zealand in 1994 against the Springboks in the white-hot cauldron of Carisbrook in Dunedin, and his last also against South Africa, in Johannesburg in 2000.
Ieremia was a regular selection in the Hurricanes, forming a reliable midfield partnership with Jason O’Halloran. He missed much of 1998 through injury, but came back strongly in 1999 and 2000, before moving to Japan in 2000 and spending six years playing for the Suntory Rugby Club
After his stint in Japan, Ieremia returned to Wellington to take up the assistant-coaching position on the Vodafone Wellington Lions staff, joining head coach Aussie Mclean and Jamie Joseph and coached the Wellington U21s in 2008.
In 2009, Ieremia reached another Hurricanes milestone in becoming the first former Hurricanes player to return as part of the management, taking up the reins as an assistant /technical advisor under head coach Colin Cooper.
In 2012, he was officially made Hurricanes Assistant Coach, alongside forwards coach Richard Watt and head mentor Mark Hammett.
Ieremia has the distinction of scoring the first ever try in Super rugby, against the Blues in the inaugural Super 12 match in Palmerston North in 1996
Source – Hurricanes website