Duo wish Hunters the best

Sports

By ISAAC LIRI
ENGLISH Super League-bound brothers Wellington and Stanton Albert have urged their SP Hunters teammates to make the 2018 season a special one.
The pair left for England yesterday wishing coach Michael Marum and his team, who will defend the Intrust Super Cup after their history-making win last year, the best and encouraged them to continue to build a legacy.
“It’s going to be a great challenge for the boys in the Hunters this year to defend the title,” Wellington said.
The Widnes Vikings recruits visited the Hunters camp on Monday to bid their teammates farewell and thank the club for giving them the opportunity to further their sporting careers.
“We visited the boys and we encouraged them, especially the new ones, to work harder to defend the Queensland Cup because it’s going to be very difficult.
“Queensland Cup teams are going to come very hard at the Hunters this year and the boys will have to train hard and play well and continue to make our country proud.” The Alberts from Mendi, Southern Highlands, were seen off by family and close friends.
Wellington, 23, also acknowledged the country and the PNG Rugby Football League for supporting him and brother Stanton, 22, in their careers starting from the Digicel Cup, to NRL club Penrith Panthers, to the PNG Hunters and the PNG Kumuls.
“While we go to the UK, we would like to encourage the people, the fans, of PNG to continue on to support the Hunters,” he said.
“We know that PNG, you all will continue to support the Hunters and we want them to go back-to-back this year,” Wellington added.
PNG Rugby Football League chief executive officer Reatau Rau, who was at the airport to send them off said it was a great achievement for the Albert brothers to earn contracts with the Vikings.
The pair are on one and two-year deals and will live together in the industrial town in Cheshire in Northwest England.
Wellington is on a one-year deal while Stanton slotted into the two-year deal the club had originally given to the late Kato Ottio.