Northern trump champs

 By JACK AMI

NORTHERN Zone are the new National Zone champions after finishing on top of the men’s division last Friday.

The Northerners did it in the best possible way, beating arch rivals Southern in the decisive clash at the Lae Rugby League Ground.

Northern beat the former champions 14-12. 

They thumped a young New Guinea Islands outfit 20-0 and got by the abrasive Highlanders 28-18 to make it a clean sweep.

Northern can lay claim to being the top region for rugby league in the country with three titles after the four-day championship. They won the Under-16, U18 and men’s titles while Highlands bagged the women’s title.

Southern Zone underachieved missing out on a title at the 2015 edition of the zone championships.

The matches in Lae did not attract the expected big crowd, with no more than 200 people attending the games daily.

Port Moresby NCD Suburban League president Billy Aki was disappointed with the organisers and Northern Zone officials.  

He claimed that they had hijacked the event with biased decisions which were not in the best interest of players and promoting raw talents.

“We were told that no Papua New Guinea NRL Digicel Cup players would be involved in the event but Northern fielded two players,” Aki said.

“In the first match we played against Northern, first half was 30 minutes and in the second half it was reduced to 20 minutes.

Aki claimed that the referees were “very biased” in their decision against Southern when they played the home side.

“This did not serve the purpose of the national trials but unfairly benefitted Northern Zone,” Aki said.

However, senior referee Luxie Metta said they were pressured with criticisms from Southern and Highlands during the men’s and women’s trials.

The 2016 trials are confirmed for September in Port Moresby. 

Aki said in Port Moresby, they would ensure that standard rules applied and matches for all divisions would run concurrently over three to four days.

Last week’s zone championships saw each division play out its matches on a single day with teams, despite playing 40 minute games, playing three matches in a day.

PNGRFL national selectors were unable to name players for the Prime Minister’s XIII training squad.

Selected players from the trials will train together with Digicel Cup players for the PNG PM’s XIII.

There will not be a PNGNRL Digicel Cup All Stars and PNGRFL Confederate All Stars match on Sept 26 in Port Moresby.