Stephen Betham
| Full name | Stephen Betham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Place of birth | Samoa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Position(s) | Assistant Coach | ||
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| Current team | Samoa sevens | ||
| National team(s) | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Points) |
| Teams coached | |||
| Years | Team | ||
| 2009-2012 2012-2015 |
Samoa sevens Samoa |
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Correct as of 17 September 2015
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Stephen Betham is the former Head Coach of the Samoa national rugby union team, that regularly participated in the World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup. Betham, who played for Samoa U-20's at a young age, has spent most his rugby career as a coach.
Betham was previously head coach of the Samoa sevens side from 2009, where he led the team to victory in the 2010 USA Sevens, 2010 Adelaide Sevens, 2010 Hong Kong Sevens and 2010 Edinburgh Sevens to claim the 2009–10 IRB Sevens World Series title in his first year in charge. Samoa failed to make as much of an impact in 2010/11, finishing fifth on the table, only making a Cup final once, losing to England 29–21 in the 2010 Dubai Sevens.
In 2012, he was appointed head coach of the Manu Samoa team, on a four-year contract until after the 2015 Rugby World Cup. This came just weeks after being named assistant coach for Manu Samoa, with the Australian Adrian Thompson in the sights of the Samoa Rugby Union, though Thompson turned the job down, to give Betham the role of head coach. His first match in charge came on 5 June 2012 during the 2012 IRB Pacific Nations Cup, where Betham led Samoa to a 20–18 victory over Tonga. This was backed up by a further 2 victories over Fiji 29–26, and Japan 27–26 to claim Samoa's first PNC title since 2010. On 23 June, Samoa push a strong Scotland side in Apia, to go down narrow losers 17–16. During Samoa's end-of-year tour, Betham led Samoa to a 26–19 victory over Wales at the Millennium Stadium, which was Samoa's first win over Wales since 1999. That also saw Samoa rise to seventh in the World Rugby Rankings, Samoa's highest ever positioning and the highest any tier 2 nation had got to.
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