Champions start Games title defence

Pacific Games women’s football champions Papua New Guinea kick off their title defence at the JS Blatter Football Complex in Apia, Samoa, today, knowing that anything short of gold will be disappointing.
Coach Federica Sakette and her assistant Margaret Aka will be relying on co-captains Sandra Birum, Lucy Maino and veteran Deslyn Siniu to call the shots.
Megan Gunemba, who was the joint top-goal scorer at the Oceania Football Confederation Women’s Nations Cup in New Caledonia last year, will look to click into gear alongside Marie Kaipu in Group B.
Papua New Guinea — who are the top-ranked side at the Games — are grouped with Tahiti, Cook Islands, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
The women’s event has only ever been won by PNG since it was introduced in 2003.
While PNG remain the favourites, Fiji will also fancy their chances under the guidance of French coach Christophe Gamel, who masterminded a surprise defeat of PNG last year.
New Caledonia, who reached the finals at the past two Games, and Samoa, buoyed by enthusiastic home support, will also be vying for medals.
The men’s tournament will feature 11 nations – American Samoa, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand U23, PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
The women’s tournament will feature 10 teams — American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, PNG, Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
Both events will see teams split into two pools for a round-robin tournament.
The top team from each pool will progress to the gold medal match, while the second-placed team from each pool will contest the bronze medal match.
In the men’s event, pool A sees PNG pitted against Vanuatu and New Zealand (who are participating by invitation with an under 23 team) with those three nations likely to be vying for medal-match progression.
Pool B looks enticingly close with New Caledonia, Tahiti, Fiji and the Solomon Islands all in the running for the medal matches.
The Solomon Islands are coached by Dutchman Wim Rijsbergen, who represented the Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup final and arranged for the Solomon Islands to tour there recently in preparation.
Fiji feature Roy Krishna, who was named player of the year in the A-League, Australia and New Zealand’s professional football competition.
Football begins at 10am (Samoa time) today. Samoa is three hours ahead of PNG time. – gamesnewsservice