Light at end of the tunnel

The National Sports

Greetings to all our rugby league family and welcome to our fourth edition of Fulltime Reserve, a weekly column to discuss all matters rugby league in our favourite newspaper The National.
This week has seen Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL) confirm the return of a revised 20-round competition set to start on May 28.
The United Kingdom’s Rugby Football League is also expected make an announcement on the return of the Super League season soon.
The NRL has been able to do this off the back of an innovative strategy in consultation with all its stakeholders, including the national and state governments in Australia and New Zealand, which have given the green light to the league.
Importantly, the NRL resumption has been possible due to:

  • Australia and New Zealand bringing the Covid-19 pandemic under control; and,
  • The NRL developing a comprehensive set of protocols that ensure the health and welfare of all stakeholders in the game are protected, especially the players and officials.

The national governments’ approval of the NRL restart demonstrates their acknowledgement of the value of sports in helping bring hope and build confidence to restore normalcy in their communities.
These are encouraging developments for rugby league globally as we all seek to learn from this and develop our own revised programmes for this year.
The Papua New Guinea Rugby Football League (PNGRFL) is encouraged that the measures undertaken by our Government have been able to ensure the control of the pandemic in PNG with only eight reported cases and no deaths recorded so far.
The Government recently announced plans to lift some state of emergency (SOE) restrictions by June 2 and allow for a “new normal” which means that PNGRFL’s plans for the start of rugby league programmes and activities on June 5 is on target.
To ensure some rugby league can start, PNGRFL — after consulting its partners — has submitted revised plans and protocols for this season to the SOE controller and the respective provincial SOE controllers for clearance.
Tentative plans are for Digicel Cup franchises to resume training on June 6 ahead of season kick-off on July 5.
All other domestic programmes and competitions will be subject to strict compliance clearance given by PNGRFL over the next few weeks on a case-by-case basis.
We will be working with all our stakeholders to ensure that we can restore some football this year and through it, assist to bring hope and build confidence to restore normalcy for lives, businesses and communities impacted by the pandemic and restrictions.
For more updates the Fulltime Reserve now has its own Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages where members can follow us and provide their views as we update these pages with interesting new stories, events and developments around the game daily.
We can also be contacted via [email protected] to provide feedback on issues covered in this column weekly or ask questions on issues that you would like us to discuss.
Until next week, may the grace, love and care of our Good Lord be with you.

Cheers,
Sandis