East Sepik, WNB start touch off with wins

THE touch competition of the PNG Games got underway yesterday with the open mixed games played at the Sarakolok Oval near Kimbe.
Touch football competition manager Alphonse Joffey said they had to start with the open mixed division to allow teams to travel in for the rest of the games.
Currently, all the teams are in Kimbe for the PNG Games while part of the Eastern Highlands team have yet to reach the competition venues.
Joffey said he was pleased with the competition despite some hiccups.
He said 12 provinces had nominated for the competition and were placed into two pools.
Pool A has Northern, Chimbu, East Sepik, Milne Bay, Bougainville and West New Britain while East New Britain, National Capital District, Morobe, Southern Highlands, Eastern Highlands and Madang were in pool B.
The open mixed competition will run until Friday for the finals, the open men and women’s competition will start on Monday.
In the early games played today at Sarakolok, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville recorded the highest score of the tournament with a 15-5 win over a depleted Milne Bay side in Pool A.
Northern were second with 8 points and Chimbu managed to register 1 point.
Hosts West New Britain beat Northern 6-5 and East Sepik  hammered Chimbu 8-4.
In pool B, the National Capital District edged East New Britain 9-8 and thrashed Morobe 9-3.
Morobe recovered to beat SHP 9-2 while Madang registered their first point with a forfeit against EHP.