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Manusina turn to 18-year veteran as new head coach

YORK, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 06: Bella Milo, Defence Coach of Samoa (L) and Ramsay Tomokino, Head Coach of Samoa (R), interact during the warm up prior to the Women's Rugby World Cup 2025 Pool A match between USA and Samoa at York Community Stadium on September 06, 2025 in York, England. (Photo by Molly Darlington - World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images)
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Manusina Samoa have appointed legendary playmaker Bella Milo as the team’s newest head coach.

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The 39-year-old takes over from Ramsey Tomokino, who led the team at last year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup.

During her playing career Milo enjoyed an 18-year Test rugby career with the Manusina. She competed at the 2006 and 2014 Women’s Rugby World Cup.

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In 2016 the former fly-half represented Samoa at the repechage tournament for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Her playing career concluded after the 2023 edition of WXV 2 in Cape Town, South Africa.

At last year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup in England, Milo served as defence coach for Samoa while six months pregnant as the team exited the competition at the group stage after matches with Australia, England and USA.

Bella Milo said: “It’s a privilege to give back to Manusina and help grow the game for our players.”

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Milo will take on her position as Manusina head coach after she completes her 11 year stay at the very heart of rugby in Hong Kong.

Since 2015, Milo has worked for the Hong Kong Rugby Union as an assistant coach and has been Valley RFC’s general manager since 2022.

She will be the women’s national team’s lead coach at the upcoming Asia Rugby Emirates Women’s Championship.

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Phantom 26 minutes ago
Nations Championship: 'The data shows the north has finally caught up with the south'

Fact: the gap between the North and the South has narrowed considerably - that I get. However, determining that only selecting only Home grown players or playing in the home country is is the optimal strategy is a bit of a toss up and highly reliant on the economies of the home union. I do understand that England and to a lesser degree Ireland selects home based only. The top 14 is a massive threat to their domestic product. France would probably not be affected (the money is at home). Fiji, Argentina, Samoa, Italy and you could even argue Scotland have only benefitted from this. Their players either go overseas to learn at higher levels (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina) or players coming into their leagues to strengthen the home product and their National teams (Scotland, Italy, Japan).

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