Rhys Ruka faces Tahiti in Rarotonga on Sunday, and applications for his old job close on 30 September
Fencibles United has saluted its outgoing men’s first team coach, Rhys Ruka, a fortnight after he played a pivotal part in winning the club its first Chatham Cup.
He leaves at one of the highest points in the club’s history, having taken it further in the Chatham Cup than any Fencibles side before it.
Ruka, 38, goes to the Cook Islands men’s national team.
“The last three years have been an amazing ride, one I’m very grateful to the club for,” he said in a statement issued by the club.
“From a selfish point of view I feel now is the right moment for me to continue my coaching path in a new environment, but more importantly, I believe it’s best for the club to have a fresh face come in to help the next generation of Fencibles players reach a new level in a different way.”
He goes after three seasons in which Fencibles went up into the Northern League and then won New Zealand football’s oldest trophy.
No Fencibles team had gone beyond the quarter-finals before this year’s.
Chairman Aaron Carson said Ruka had been hired to do two things at once, and did both.
“Rhys joined Fencibles at a critical juncture, tasked with establishing a pathway for youth players into the men’s first team while keeping our promotion ambitions firmly on track,” Carson said.
“Those years of strategic investment into our youth, seamlessly partnered with key experienced players, culminated in historic success this season when the team went all the way to lift the most prestigious football trophy in New Zealand, the Chatham Cup!”
The club thanked Ruka’s partner Chelsea, and signed off “Once a Fencible, always a Fencible.”
The club has applications open for a new head coach, closing on 30 September.
Whoever takes the job inherits the youth pathway Carson describes, and the task of keeping it going.
Ruka had the Cook Islands job before he had the cup, with the Cook Islands Football Association naming him its national men’s coach three weeks before the Chatham Cup final.
“Rarotonga has had a massively positive influence on my character and the way I see the world, so to be able to give back to the country that’s given me so much is a unique blessing and one that I’m very grateful for,” he told Friends of Football, which credited OFC Media.
He coached the Cook Islands women’s team earlier this year.
He played in Rarotonga too, for Tupapa-Maraerenga.
He coached Manukau United and then Manurewa, which he took up into the Northern League in 2022, before Fencibles.
His first match in charge is against Tahiti in Rarotonga at 5pm on Sunday, New Zealand time.
“I don’t know much about a lot of our players, so this first set of games will be about setting new standards and trying to implement a way of playing while having fun along the way,” Ruka said.
“We have a two-year plan, so it is about gradually getting better from the moment we get together.”
Back in Pakuranga, applications close three days after that first whistle.
