Paga claim POMRFL premiership crown

WAGAMBIE Lawyers Paga Panthers have claimed the SP Brewery Port Moresby rugby league premiership after beating reigning premiers Hekari Tarangau in the A grade division at the Lloyd Robson Oval yesterday.
Tarangau, who were optimistic  about retaining the title, failed to live up to their expectations as the Panthers step up their game to spoil their party with a gutsy 24-12 win.
Paga also walked away with K10,000 prize money and the runners-up settled for K5,000.
Earlier, Paga captain Joe Sipa said that the side was quiet about their chances but had been well-prepared for the match.
The outcome had spoken volumes for the side blended with young guns who were playing their grand final.
It was a slow start in the opening half with Paga struggling to get out of their half until they found a spark of hope when the referee awarded them a penalty 15m out of the Tarangau territory.
Five-eighth Charlie Simon converted to take a handy 2-0 lead.
That ignited some firepower from both sides as they continued to trade rampaging runs to create opponents.
The reigning premiers hit the front first when hooker Andrew Umba ran in the first four-pointer after slipping through weak defence put up their opponents.
Paga’s inside centre Dougie Kaman showed some class with a huge right step to open up their opponents’ solid defence and go over to score, putting them on par with Tarangau.
But Tarangau came back with a try soon after through bulky prop John Giro who backed a break from fullback Jojo Forova and scored a try – a reward for his efforts.
The score could have remained 12-6 at half time, however thanks to Paga interchange Samuel Maniat, who managed to rampage his way over Tarangau’s defence to level the scores 12-12 at half time.
Going into the second half, Paga scored two tries to outside centre Toby Kopi and fullback Stargroth Amean while Simon once again landed an extra two points from a penalty.
Paga’s head coach Richard Wagambie was overwhelmed with the win.
He said it was something he wanted to prove to the other teams in the competition.
“The victory is very sweet. I am very happy that even though 90% of our players had played their first grand final.
“We did not have any players from the bemobile Cup competition assisting us.
“But, we showed that we were simply the better side and outsmarted the more experienced Tarangau with their big guns,” Wagambie said.