Get a grab on Manly’s bid

ONE prominent Australian National Rugby League (NRL) team is holding talks to see if it could stage a future home game away – in Port Moresby.
The National reported last week the efforts by Manly Sea Eagles chief executive officer Graham Lowe to open discussions with a corporate player and PNGNRL bid officials to make this happen in the near future.
What a golden opportunity! The timing could not be better!
What do we hear?
Silence. Dead, shocking silence.
The proposal elicited just this one response from PNG National Rugby League (PNGNRL) boss Don Fox: “It is news to me, but never believe what you read in the newspapers.”
Regardless of what or who Fox chooses to believe in, this proposal should make PNG rugby league administrators and the NRL bid team rethink their options and priorities.
Here is a Sydney-based NRL team, one of the oldest in the competition, taking an interest in playing a game in Port Moresby.
A big name in rugby league, Lowe, who was also former Kiwi coach, is jetting around trying to make this happen.
They are coming to us. They see an opportunity from that far off where we seem not to.
We see any opportunity here. Long before we can live the NRL dream, an NRL team is prepared to play its home game on PNG soil.
This would be the test to see if PNG has got it to actually get a team into the NRL. Does it have the stadium facilities, for instance? What would be the requirements for a televised night time game, for instance?
Here, on PNG soil, for the first time rugby league players, administrators and supporters would have an opportunity to observe first-hand how NRL teams perform – from training to management.
The Manly shock initiative which, even if it were not to happen, gives PNGRFL administrators and the PNGNRL bid team an opportunity to assess their options and priorities.
Any NRL bid would require PNG to have international standard football stadiums. What is being done in that area, presently, in PNG?
Might it not be a good idea to first build a good stadium, which is an NRL prerequisite anyway, and proceed to negotiate and have actual NRL home and away games of the nature proposed by Manly well before PNG enters its team?
Some Sydney teams’ home games attract between 6,000 and 7,000 people at the most.
With sufficient marketing and a good stadium, a home game staged in Port Moresby could easily net double or triple that crowd.
Papua New Guineans would tear down Lloyd Robson oval to watch an NRL game.
Manly has done its homework. It knows the following is here. It just needs to make it happen.
And that is the attitude that our own administrators must take. They must look at the possibilities and the opportunities of this sort present.
We are unclear how they cut the pie in these arrangements but, most certainly, there would be a significant slice for the stadium owners and, so, this is a revenue thing for PNG as well as for the experience.
This, to our mind, is the way to go. With absolutely no experience, PNG cannot expect to make a grand entrance into NRL without any glitches.
And what glitches there might be could very easily be ironed out well ahead of time if PNG could stage NRL games well before its own team enters the scene and learn from the experience.
That, at least one NRL team has spotted Port Moresby as a potential venue for a home game, speaks volumes if only we had the ears to listen.
Time that we started cleaning up our own backyard first. Starting with junior league development, we must work our way to facilities development, to talent and skills development and then onto the international scene.
It would seem to us that we are about to follow traditional PNG pasin – to throw caution to the wind, forget preparation and supply lines, and take a flying leap.
Watch where we land.