goodmorningpapua.com – George Deda started his career as a athlete of rugby by joining the Rugby Club team of Irian Jaya in 1996. Together with his team, Deda began to enter an international level rugby tournament in Bali and Jakarta.
He was also given the responsibility to coach and develop a rugby organization in Papua. At the Arafura Games in 1999, Deda and the Papuan rugby team participated and competed. They also appeared at the Darwin Seven international championship in Darwin, Australia, in 1997. From there, George Deda’s rugby career continued to skyrocket until he became a coach.
“In 2004 I entered the Indonesian rugby team for the Asian rugby championship in Cambodia. In 2005 I was entrusted as the captain of the Indonesian rugby national team at the Manila SEA Games and we won the bronze medal. After the Manila SEA Games, I no longer play for the national team and focus on being a coach and managing the rugby organizations in Papua,” said Deda, to the media crew of goodmorningpapua.com, Thursday (8/7/21).
The former member of the Mimika Regency DPRD for two periods (2004-2009 and 2014-2019) and the Secretary of KONI Mimika for the 2015-2018 period has been handling the Papuan rugby team since 2000.
His first national achievement as a coach was successfully uniting a gold medal for Papua in the West Java PON exhibition branch. In 2017, the rugby team won two silver medals at the national championship. The following year in Yogyakarta, Deda and the Papuan rugby team again won gold in the national championship.
Because of his dedication to the rugby sport, Deda was later appointed as the Daily Chair of the Indonesian Rugby Union (PRUI) of Papua by concurrently serving as the head coach of the men’s and women’s teams for PON XX with the target of two gold medals.
For George Deda, rugby has become a part of his life. Most of his time he spent in a sport similar to American Football.
The man who is devout in worship and a church servant is even willing to put aside his job as an employee of PT Freeport Indonesia in order to focus on training his foster children.
“For the sake of the rugby team and the achievements of PON, for about 2 years I left all my work and I only focused on PON. I will continue to return to work, but PON in Tanah Papua is unlikely to be repeated in the near future. I also left my wife and children in Timika,” he said.
Currently, Deda is focusing on finalizing his team’s preparations by undergoing a try out in Yogyakarta. Previously, the Papuan rugby team had undergone TC running since 2019. Meanwhile, the captain of the Papuan men’s rugby team, Ronald Demena, admitted that his team’s preparations were now more focused on mental and physical aspects.