Filoi Eneliko
Rugby Coach
Samoa
Top Samoan rugby coach Filoi Eneliko says putting passion into action has helped her smash her goals. Eneliko has had a stellar sporting career both on and off the field. She’s the head of Lakapi Samoa Women’s Academy, teaching high-level rugby skills to local women. And last year, she started as an assistant coach for Australia’s Brumbies Super Rugby women’s team.
World Rugby Women’s High-Performance Director Nicky Ponsford offered Eneliko a full-time coaching role with the Brumbies, but Eneliko asked for a role as an assistant coach.
“I said to her, ‘I have a full-time job back home. My heart still belongs to Samoa and I love what I’m doing there developing the girls, but I can become an assistant’.”
Enekliko has enjoyed her time with the Brumbies. “We made it to the semi-final last year, but it’s not just about that, but also seeing the women players in the Brumbies grow – there are a lot of them in the Wallaroos now.”
Eneliko says helping players to become better individually and as a team is her passion. While she has learned a lot since she began coaching in 2013, she also has the hands-on experience to back up her tactical knowledge.
“I started playing sports when I was young with a dream that one day I will represent Samoa. I have represented Samoa in athletics, rugby for both Sevens and 15s, and touch rugby. I represented Samoa in five Pacific Games and two World Cups. It was a huge achievement for me and that is where I got a lot of experience to not only become a coach, but also a mentor to the young generations of Samoa,” she says.
As a young player, Eneliko looked up to various mentors and star players. “I wanted to become like them in the future and now here I am. It’s a very successful journey for me, looking back to when I was young.”
Her love of rugby also keeps her coaching: “My passion for the game is why I keep on doing this. Helping the young generations, that’s my goal. For me it’s not about recognition, it’s about building players not only to be better on the field, but also off. Sport is not just about the game itself, but also the opportunities to become a referee, coach, mentor, or sports administrator.”
Back when she was playing her top game, the opportunities for young women in rugby were more limited than they are now, she says. “There were not many opportunities for me to play international games. Now there are a lot of opportunities for our young generations to pursue their careers.”
Being in a male-dominated field has its challenges, but Eneliko says it’s important to her just to work together and learn from each other. Working with the Brumbies team, Eneliko was impressed by the solidarity between the men’s and women’s coaches and teams.
“The men’s and women’s teams are working together, building up that team culture.”
Her time with the Brumbies gave her a glimpse of well-organised, well-resourced sports environments, she says. “Not everything that I learnt from there will work for me in Samoa, but I will take all the learnings and look at what will.”
For example, Brumbies players use laptops after every game to analyse how they performed on the field.
“Sometimes the most challenging thing [in Samoa] is we don’t have enough money. Still, the Samoan teams score pretty well, given their lack of resources,” Eneliko says. “Even though we don’t have the fancy laptops, we use what we have. The Pacific Island people are very creative. If we don’t have balls, we use bottles, we use sticks. If we don’t have cones, we use shoes, bottles, or whatever is available.”
At the Samoan academy, she coaches young women to prepare them to take to the field in national and international teams. “It’s really good to see our girls here develop. Four of my players went to the Super W in different teams That’s a really good sign of what we’re doing here in developing those players.”
Eneliko encourages young women to continue with their academic studies, as well as sports pursuits. “Sports will take you for maybe 30 years, but academic study will take you for life,” she says.
At the academy, she tries to instil a strong sense of ethics in the players. “The most important thing is to teach them young, with values on discipline, respect, integrity, solidarity, but most of all is spirituality. Our main thing is our spiritual values, not only our culture as a whole country, but our culture in the team environment.”
Eneliko knows from her own experience that achieving your best takes hard work. “For me, it’s more action than words, so my message is: ‘If it’s your passion, put action into it, and follow your dreams’. I promise you that there will be challenges along the way, but you will always overcome them by being patient, and staying there.”
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