7s teams slump at series

The National Sports

By MICHAEL PHILIP
PAPUA New Guinea rugby 7s national teams Palais and Pukpuks have failed to improved their standings in the World Rugby Challenger Series following their poor performances during the series’ second leg in Uruguay over the weekend.
Both the men’s and women’s teams finished ninth after the first challenger series earlier this year in Dubai, but fell two spots down to 11th place in the 12-team competition.
Both the Palais and the Pukpuks lost all three pool matches resulting in them dropping out of the top 10.
Attempts by The National yesterday to get comments from Palais coach Cecil Davani and Pukpuks coach Aiem Pilokos were unsuccessful.
PNG Rugby Union chief executive Sailosi Druma when contacted yesterday said: “Will provide response when I get to Pom. I am currently in Madang at the moment”.
Both teams will return and prepare for the third leg of the challenger series set for Krakow in Poland from May 18-19.
The Palais began their campaign with a big loss to Belgium 37-5 with the only unconverted try from captain Marie Biyama.
They came back short in their second match against Kenya losing 29-12 with two tries from lanky speedster Joanne Lagona and Alice Alois.
The struggling Palais further continued their losing streak following their loss to China 27-14 with two converted tries again from Lagona and Alois.
For the Pukpuks, hosts Uruguay crunched them 31-14 in their opening match with two converted tries from Derrick Voku and Todam Dampan and further got hammered by Germany in their second match 36-0.
They made a very close comeback only to lose 22-17 to Uganda in their final match with tries from Voku, captain Kunak Late and Benjamin Kennedy.
Meanwhile, the race to qualify from the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024 took a potentially decisive turn in Montevideo over the weekend as Uruguay’s men and China’s women emerged victorious on Sunday.
Following the third leg of the series in Krakow, the top four in both the men’s and women’s standings will qualify for a standalone promotion-relegation tournament against the bottom four teams from HSBC 2024.