Allen brothers eager to bag more goals at championship

Papua New Guinea opened their OFC U19 Championship campaign with a strong start and among the star performers in the 4-0 win over Tonga were brothers Jonathan and Abraham Allen.
From Madang, Jonathan and Abraham grew up in a family devoted to football.
Their father is a coach at the Madang Football Club in the National Soccer League.
Madang is known for producing some of the country’s top footballers, including Alwin and Felix Komolong.
The brothers started playing from an early age in the lower division up to the elite level of football in PNG.
“Our father is the one who put us in a club in Madang,” Abraham said.
“We started playing in the C-division.
“We were then promoted to the B-division and after that, we made the top league in Madang.”
This is not their first trip to French Polynesia, with the pair also involved in the OFC U17 Championship.
“We were just unlucky to lose 2-1 against New Zealand in the semi-final,” Abraham said of last February’s ill-fated campaign.
“This year, we need to work harder to make it into the semifinals again because our group is very tough.”
The brothers played in the lone striker’s role against Tonga, with the younger Abraham coming on as a substitute for Jonathan in the 60th minute.
After Jonathan scored the second of Papua New Guinea’s four goals, Abraham did one better when he notched a brace during his 20-minute cameo.
“I felt really good after scoring two goals in the second half of the game against Tonga.
“I was on the bench watching my brother missing his chances, so I was thinking that when I go in, I needed to score and I did it,” he said.
Abraham said it was always special playing alongside each.
“We’re happy that both of us are travelling with the team,” he said.
“We’re proud to represent our family, friends and country.
“We talk to each other about our games and it give us extra strength.”
After missing a number of chances in the first game, Jonathan said he would need to improve on his finishing if he wanted to match Abraham in the scoring department.
“We had a good game against Tonga, especially up front,” he said.
“We created a lot of opportunities.
“I missed too many chances in the first half and that is an area I would like to improve on in our next game.”
With three points already in the bag, PNG are heading into their second game against Tahiti knowing another win would put them in a good position to progress to the semifinals.
“The second game against Tahiti will be hard because they are bigger than us,” Jonathan said.
“But we will try our best and who knows, maybe one of us will score again.”