Coaching staff blamed for Orchids performance

By MELTON PAIS
A pioneer women’s rugby league coach is critical of the performance by the PNG Orchids in the recent women’s rugby league World Cup.
Sammy Rice Jackson, who guided the Port Moresby-based Royals women’s rugby league club for seven years, is laying the blame for the Orchid’s performance squarely on the coaching staff.
He said the Orchids coaching staff lacked knowledge, not of the game but of their own players.
“You as technical staff need to know the weaknesses and strengths of players — what they are good at and what they are not and how they play and what position they play to the best of their ability,” Jackson said.
“The team lineup for the World Cup matches showed that there was lack of players and that prompted the coaching staff to make team sheets that did not work out for the players.”
Jackson, 31, who hails from Yakaendis village in Wapenamanda, Enga, is calling on the Orchids coaching staff to humble themselves, keep their heads down and start getting to know the players by joining him in coaching local clubs and building their player knowledge from there.
“Lacking of player knowledge resulted in confusion in team sheets and the game plan,” Jackson said.
Jackson was the man behind all the Royals women’s success stories in rugby league as well as the Southern region women’s team who won the National Zone Trials in Lae last year.
Jackson started coaching women in 2010.
His team, Royals, appeared four times in the grand final of the Port Moresby Rugby League and won two.