Kumuls are PNG’s Pride

THE country’s number one sport, rugby league, will take centre stage on Sept 23 when the Prime Minister’s XIII play their Australian counterparts at the Lloyd Robson Oval in Port Moresby.
The match will begin the Kumuls’ road to the 2013 Rugby League World Cup in England next October.
Despite not making the semi-finals at the last edition held in Australia in 2008, Papua New Guinea is still ranked as the fourth best nation in the sport by the International Rugby League Federation. But that is an accolade the national team has to earn.
We hung onto that position ostensibly because in this country, unlike anywhere else on the globe, rugby league is considered the national sport. Of course, it did not hurt that we re-exerted our island superiority by winning the Pacific Cup in 2009 even though our Melanesian brothers, Fiji, had effectively usurped our standing in the 2008 World Cup by being the first Pacific team to make the semi-finals.
One can argue that they had an easier route but the bottom line is they still made it a level higher than we have ever gone and, although, that may not grate, it should spur us on.
Sports media in this country lives off the rugby league and there is an undeniable correlation between the rise in sales figures for newspapers during a major rugby league event, national or international as opposed to any other sport. That alone reveals where the people – at least a majority of the paper-buying public – have their hearts.
You might even compare the general reaction and feeling of our sports public by two hypothetical scenarios that would both pull at the chord strings of national pride.
Imagine if a PNG athlete were to win an Olympic medal what the response would be from the public.
Obviously there would be a sense of achievement and collective pride at the feat, for one of our own shining on the world stage. But, what if the PNG Kumuls beat a full strength Australian team at a World Cup, or better yet, won the title of champions?
What would be the reaction from the fans?
What result would reverberate more with fandom?
We may not know for sure but there would probably be more euphoria and satisfaction simply because for more people in PNG, rugby league means something.  It is a claim that we have staked and will continue to have in the foreseeable future.
So we, meaning the sport’s administration and selected teams, need to start playing and acting like a top four ranked side.
With that as a segue into the current match, one can see that the PNG Rugby Football League (PNGRFL), the governing body has a lot of ground to make up on the path to preparing the national time for the rigours of the World Cup and beyond.
The delay in naming a side for Prime Minister’s XIII match, and leaving it until 10 days before the game to make the official announcement, is almost inexcusable.
It smacks of an organisation that is struggling to keep with the pace of the game.
Yet, the public waited patiently, anticipating who would make the team to play the Australians.
The explanation given by PNGRFL administration that the team could not be named because Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, who was attending an international summit in Russia and also visiting China, need to sign off was a feeble excuse.
The Australian side was named last Sunday and had undergone several changes while we dithered with a supposed list of players in hand.
That kind of speed in organising a team for a one-off match will need to be improved on, especially heading into the World Cup.
The PNGRFL needs to be more efficient and interactive with the media and, ultimately, the fans.
It should not be about pleasing the political masters (even though they have given a substantial amount of money to the team).
It should be about doing the right thing by people who pay their hard-earned cash to watch and support their national team.
With only nine days of preparation time, we may not be as well-oiled or tuned up as we would have hoped to be. But with pride on the line and an Australian side affected by a host of withdrawals, PNG could make a resounding statement.