Confident Pukpuks head off to 7s tourney

By ISAAC LIRI
THE Papua New Guinea Pukpuks are confident they can qualify for the HSBC World Sevens Series says coach Douglas Guise.
The team will compete at the qualifying event at the Hong Kong 7s from April 6-8.
Guise said their confidence was built around their recent performances at the Hamilton 7s where they beat Russia (33-7) and France (35-0) and make it to the trophy quarterfinals losing to USA (42-12).
In Hongkong, the Pukpuks will be up against three former finalists, Zimbabwe (2015), Hongkong (2016) and Germany (2017).
Guise said their pool would be tough however they had prepared well and had taken confidence from their efforts at the Sydney and Hamilton legs of the World Series.
“We got a bit of confidence after the Hamilton 7s with a couple of good wins but most importantly we need to get out of the pool stage at the qualifiers,” Guise said.
“It’s a strong pool that we’re in, but we’ve prepared well.
“The teams we’re up against are very good so we have our work cut out for us.
“We just have to start believing in ourselves that we can do it,” Guise said.
The winner of the qualifying tournament joins the top 15 nations on the world circuit.
PNG have made the tournament’s semifinals before.
“We’ve made the semifinals a couple of times and we know where we went wrong,” Guise said.
“In the past tournaments, we’ve seen that we finish off with less than 12 players.
“But having the boys in camp longer, taking part in the Marist 7s in Fiji and having a bit of work with High Performance Sport PNG, has put us in a good position.
“We’ve learned valuable lessons from the Sydney 7s where we got schooled by South Africa.
“I was very impressed with the boys on how we bounced back after that and improved in the following games.
“I don’t think the other teams on the circuit would have given France a 35-0 score line like that and it’s a testament that our boys can perform and it proved that our systems can actually work at that level,” Guise said.
Guise has included his strike players in Gairo Kapana, Eugene Tokavai, Willie Tirang and Wesley Vali for the crucial Hong Kong tournament.
The Pukpuks have named a 13-man squad for Hong Kong with one to be omitted on Saturday before the team leaves on Monday.
Pukpuks: 1. Henry Kalua 2. Eugene Tokavai 3. Joseph Mocke 4. Himah Alu 5. Wesley Vali 6. Arthur Clement 7. Freddy Rova 8. Manu Guise 9. Dean Manale 10. Gairo Kapana 11. William Tirang 12. Hensley Peter 13. Patrick Tatut.