North Fly Ipatas Cup date set

WESTERN will run its North Fly Coca-Cola Ipatas Cup Western Province Challenge on Dec 21, says tournament coordinator John Passingan.
Passingan told The National from Kiunga that from their meeting on Wednesday, they have formed an eight-member interim executive body to manage the tournament in the province.
The executive members whose names were not revealed by Passingan comprise of four members from Tabubil, two from Kiunga and two from Ningerum.
Passingan said the tournament would be in Kiunga.
“Now that we have a committee in place and a venue, we are calling on teams from within the North Fly district to affiliate.
“Because this is the first time for the province to join such a reputable rugby league competition, we have decided on a K1000 fee to cover both the team affiliation and player registrations as one package, which is set to close on Dec 20,” Passingan said.
As per the general CCIC criteria, only eight teams are allowed to take part in the tournament, but according to Passingan, his management had decided that they could still run the competition with a minimum of four teams.
“We will still run the tournament if less than eight teams register because it’s our first time to join the competition.”
He said that the registration period was for three weeks, which opened yesterday and closes on Thurs, Dec 20.
“This is a great opportunity for many of our young talents to be recognized at the higher level,” Passingan said.
“I therefore call on funding organizations to through their support behind us.”