Kami out to increase participation

By MELTON PAIS
HEAD of the Papua New Guinea Rugby Football Union faction led by Steven Kami have a huge task ahead of them to put national teams together in the sevens and fifteens formats of the game.
They are also aiming to start a schoolboys’ programme.
In a media conference earlier in the week at Bava Park, Port Moresby, Kami said his group were aiming to improve the standard of rugby union in PNG which was something he wanted to achieve at end of 2017.
“Priority has been given to sevens initially and then 15s but there is also a schoolboys rugby union programme that we want to deal with that will start in schools in Port Moresby starting mid next month,” Kami said.
“Our target now is, over the next five years, we want to get 100,000 students for rugby throughout PNG.
“If we do that, that’s puts us number one among Pacific Islands. That is our target now.
“We have about 20,000 now and we want to get another 80,000 school aged children involved to make it 100,000.
“If we achieve our targets of getting those 100,000 then even the other countries can’t beat us.”
Kami said that his management team would start with NCD schools this year and reach out to other centers later.