Damian Te We Wehi Oa Te Rangi Karauna (born 6 March 1975) is a New Zealand

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

coach and former professional player. He represented New Zealand in rugby sevens and won four

Sevens World Series The World Rugby Men's Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the com ...

Early life

Karauna grew up in

Mangakino Mangakino is a small town on the banks of the Waikato River in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located close to the hydroelectric power station at Lake Maraetai, southeast of Hamilton. The town and its infrastructure are administered a ...

, a small town on banks of the Waikato River.

Playing career

A utility back, Karauna moved to Hamilton in 1996 to play rugby for Hautapu. He made an early impact in rugby sevens, named player of the tournament in Waikato's 1996 national title-winning team. This performance got the attention of national coach

Gordon Tietjens Sir Gordon Frederick Tietjens (born 9 December 1955) is head coach of the Samoa rugby sevens team, and a celebrated former coach of the New Zealand men's national team in rugby sevens, the All Blacks Sevens. When the International Rugby Boar ...

, who called him up for that year's

Fiji Sevens The Fiji Sevens, also known as the Suva Sevens is an international rugby union sevens tournament held at the National Stadium in Suva, Fiji. It was a part of the Sevens World Series in 2000, but in the wake of the Fijian coup d'état later tha ...

. Karauna made 50 appearances for the Waikato XV between 1996 and 2000, scoring eight tries during the 1998 season, six of which came in successful

Ranfurly Shield The Ranfurly Shield, colloquially known as the Log o' Wood, is a trophy in New Zealand's domestic rugby union competition. First played for in 1904, the Shield is based on a challenge system. The holding union must defend the shield in challeng ...

defences. Called up by the

Hurricanes A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

in 1999, Karauna took the field in seven Super 12 fixtures, serving as back up to

Jason O'Halloran Jason David O'Halloran (born 28 February 1972 in Lower Hutt, New Zealand) is an All Black cap and rugby union coach. He is now the Assistant Coach at Suntory Sungoliath. He was the Assistant Coach of Glasgow Warriors. Before that he was an Assi ...

and

Alama Ieremia Namulauulu Alama Ieremia (born 27 October 1970) is a New Zealand rugby union coach and former international player for Western Samoa and New Zealand. Early life Ieremia was born in Sinamoga, a suburb of Apia, Samoa. He was educated in Samoa at ...

. He competed for the Chiefs in the 2000 Super 12 season and had two years with the Bay of Plenty, before finishing his career overseas. After two seasons in

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...

, Karauna played with Welsh club

Ospreys The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

in the 2005–06 season.

Coaching

Karauna remained at Ospreys in 2006 as a video analyst and later began working with their age-grade system. He left in 2012 to take up a position as skills coach under Gordon Tietjens with the New Zealand Sevens team and the following year aided the side as they won the

Rugby World Cup Sevens Rugby World Cup Sevens (RWCS) is the quadrennial world championship of rugby sevens, a variant of rugby union. Organised by World Rugby, it currently consists of men's and women's tournaments, and is the highest level of competition in the sport ...

. From 2016 to 2018, Karauna was head coach for the Japan Sevens team, overseeing their qualification for the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens and the 2018–19 World Sevens Series. Karauna joined

Moana Pasifika Moana Pasifika is a rugby union team made up of players from various Pacific island nations as well as New Zealand or Australian born players of Pasifika heritage, including Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and the Cook Islands. The team was originally creat ...

as an assistant coach in 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karauna, Damian 1975 births Living people New Zealand rugby union players Waikato rugby union players Bay of Plenty rugby union players Hurricanes (rugby union) players Chiefs (rugby union) players Rugby union wings Rugby union fullbacks New Zealand international rugby sevens players New Zealand rugby union coaches Coaches of international rugby sevens teams Male rugby sevens players Munakata Sanix Blues players Ospreys (rugby union) players New Zealand expatriate rugby union players in Japan New Zealand expatriate rugby union players in Wales Expatriate rugby union coaches Rugby union players from Waikato