Hunters coach, captain to represent club at awards night

By ISAAC LIRI
THE 2017 Queensland Cup awards takes place in Brisbane tonight with SP PNG Hunters coach Michael Marum, captain Ase Boas and PNG Rugby Football League chief executive officer Reatau Rau representing the club.
Marum spoke highly of the awards as a significant part of the competition which had seen his club earn some recognition since joining the Intrust Super Cup in 2014.
“The awards night is a big event for all players in the competition and this year we have our captain Ase Boas who is one of the nominees for the People’s Choice award,” Marum said.
Boas is up against some of the competition’s best talent which includes former Hunters Justin Olam (Sunshine Coast Falcons) and Thompson Teteh (Redcliffe Dolphins).
“Whichever out of these three gets it would make PNG proud again as we have won the award over the last few seasons,” he said.
Marum said he had his fingers crossed for second rower Nixon Put, who has had an outstanding debut season with the Hunters and was a candidate for the Rookie of the Year award.
It has been a big year for Put, who not only has cemented a spot in Marum’s team but also made his international debut for the Kumuls in the Pacific test against the Cook Islands on May 6 in Sydney.
PNG won 32-22 with Put scoring the match-winner.
“We had to nominate a player who was new to the competition and we had Nixon as our obvious choice. Hopefully he gets the award but it’ll be tough because there were a lot of great young players nominated as well.
“In the past years we’ve seen Israel Eliab win the five-eighth of the year, Garry Lo win the Winger of the Year and I got the Coach of the Year. Hopefully we go down there and win one or two awards again,” Marum said.