Meninga unveils junior league plan

AUSTRALIAN rugby league great Mal Meninga slipped into Papua New Guinea’s historical birthplace of rugby league last Thursday to launch his junior football clinic programme, which will help PNG’s quest for international league glory.
After the spread of the PNG’s most popular sport in the district 90 years ago, Meninga visited school students and local league officials in Bulolo, Morobe province.
He launched the programme, which is expected to spread to other centres around the country.
It will complement the local schoolboys’ rugby league programme and motivate and prepare the next generation of rugby league players with better skills and development programmes never experienced before in PNG.
The programme has the blessing of the PNG Rugby Football League (PNGRFL) and is assisted financially by Kramer Ausenco and Morobe Mining Joint Venture, which saw Meninga as the most successful and current Queensland coach in the National Rugby League (NRL), travelling to the mining township, accompanied by PNGRFL deputy chairman of Brian Kramer and Northern zone development officer Steve Malum.
It is a bottom-up approach currently undertaken by the new board, who are acting as middlemen in securing sponsorship and other necessary assistance.
Meninga, the PNGRFL and company officials met with Wau and Bulolo league officials, before meeting and engaging the students in skills training sessions which drew the local residents.
Rugby league was first played in Bulolo district by Australian miners involved in the 1920s gold rush.
Kramer said the PNGRFL had set new directions and visions and the concept had been embraced and would be spread to the districts to develop young children.
The junior players in the U10, U14 and U16 divisions will undergo continuous skills training and benefit from subsidised resources and equipment.
Meninga described the visit to Bulolo as historic and symbolic.
He said without the junior competition programme PNG had no chance of being a real force in the international arena.
Bulolo rugby league chief executive officer William Kennedy said the level of the game in other rural districts would improve if Bulolo set the standards.
Bulolo MP Sam Basil has also committed the district’s political and administrative support to developing the schoolboys rugby league programme in the district which will run parallel to Wau and Bulolo’s programmes.