Brawl ends PRL match

 By JOHN PANGKATANA

AN all-out brawl and the match abandoned five minutes before full-time soured the 26-16 win by competition leaders Snax Lae Tigers over the fearless PRK Gulf Isapea in Round 8 of the Digicel Rugby League Cup in Port Moresby yesterday.

Instead of the players punching through the gaps, they traded blows on two occasions in a tension-filled last 10 minutes before a boisterous crowd at the Lloyd Robson Oval.

In the second flare-up, spectators also joined the fray as they rained down bottles, stick and stones onto the field.

The incident, less than a minute after the first brawl, erupted from a spear-tackle from several Isapea players on Tigers winger George Benson.

This led to a melee, lasting several minutes, as players from both ran in swinging. A helpless Kokopo-based referee Daniel Pukuai could only watch.

Tigers centre Willie Minoga and Isapea hooker Lawrence Tu’u were singled out as the instigators and were sent-off. 

Pukuai then called off the game much to the ire of the spectators, just as it reached its climax. 

He is understood to have made the call due to the safety of the players with broken bottles on the playing surface.

Pukuai will be expected to front-to the PNG NRL judiciary committee to support his match report and with a video tape as added evidence, both players could be facing stiff penalties, and others could be cited as well.

For the Tigers, this is their third visit to the judiciary this season. 

From the onset, the Tigers with their superior weight advantage raced away to a 12-0 lead courtesy of centre Thompson Teteh (22nd minute) and hard-running lock Rex Reto (27th minute).

The Isapea finished the half strongly with centre John Horope nailing a brace of tries to pull back that deficit to two points at the break.

The Gulf men looked to have gained the ascendency with Tu’u kicking a 40/20 in the opening minutes, but failed to make use.

The Tigers aggressive defence kept Isapea out and further hurt the home side with a darting run from dummy-half by rake Noel Joel to score near the uprights.

While the Isapea hit back through Nelson Wallen, the Tigers seemed to have closed the curtain when Minoga burst through some shoddy defence and followed up his own kick to the in-goal to score prior to the match being halted prematurely.

Tigers 26 (T.Teteh, R.Reto, N.Joel, W.Minoga tries; A.Bine Wabo 3 con, 1 pen, W.Hasu 1 con) Isapea 16 (J.Horope 2, N.Wallen tries; J.Koivi 2 con).