Gold deserving: Topp

 By ISAAC LIRI

WINNING gold in the men’s and women’s open in the touch football grand finals did not come easy for Papua New Guinea.

 The Samoan teams came close to causing an upset but PNG managed to hang on to beat them by a narrow 8-7 margin in the men’s division and 6-2 in the women’s.    

Using their speed and skill to match the PNG teams, the Polynesians came very close to upsetting the favourites at home.  Earlier on in the semi-finals, both PNG teams had comfortable wins, where the men defeated Solomon Islands 17-2 and the women thrashed Kiribati 24-1. 

After qualifying for the gold medal playoffs, both PNG sides knew that they had a huge task ahead of them as the Samoans had displayed skill and speed in both defence and attack all throughout the tournament. 

PNG coaches Peter Topp (men) and Susanne Salter (women) said that they were wary of the Samoans and knew they would give them a very good challenge.

“Like I said before, they are a very good side and they made us really work hard so credit to their efforts, as it made the match a very, very good game,” Salter said.

“Winning gold is just indescribable for us. 

“The effort these girls have put in is an astounding and it is an honour to win gold for Papua New Guinea. “During half-time when we were leading 2-1, we knew that the Samoans wouldn’t give up so we had to remind ourselves to be focused,” Salter said.

Salter thanked the Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee’s High Performance Centre and the National Government for the funding which had  allowed the athletes to get to a level where they were competitive.