Palais’ hopes in limbo over virus

THE national rugby sevens team’s hopes of qualifying for the Women’s World Sevens Series are in limbo after the Challenger Series in South Africa was postponed due to the coronavirus.
The inaugural Women’s Sevens Challenger Series was scheduled to be played in Stellenbosch next weekend, with 12 countries competing to win a core spot on the 2021 World Series.
The Papua New Guinea Palais were drawn to face Japan, Kazakhstan and Belgium in the group stage.
But World Rugby announced on Friday that the event was being postponed in line with travel and health guidelines from the World Health Organisation and relevant authorities.
“The health and safety of teams, tournament staff and spectators is our highest priority,” the governing body said in a statement.
The Palais assembled in Sydney, Australia, last Wednesday and were to travel to South Africa this weekend.
“We had four players come into camp from Brisbane so they flew back (on Sunday) alongside a couple of my management team members and then the final 12 players fly back home to PNG (on Tuesday) then it’s back to training and a waiting game,” coach Paul Tietjens said.
“The women will keep training from their own locations on the programmes that I give them and we just play the waiting game and hope like anything that it can be rescheduled in the next month or two.”
The Palais finished fourth at the Oceania Women’s Sevens Championship in November, earning them entry to the Challenger Series and the final Olympic qualification tournament, which is scheduled to take place on the penultimate weekend in June.
Twenty-eight players attended a week of trials in Port Moresby last month, with Tietjens selecting 16 to travel to Sydney last week to train and play three matches against Australia.
Tietjens said the team were informed that the Challenger Series had been delayed on the same day they faced the Olympic champions.
“As a management group, we found out quite early on Friday morning so we were aware of it but didn’t relay it to the women as they were still very much in preparation and we still wanted to get something out of those games and keep their mind on the job,” he said.
“We broke the news to the players at the end of that day, which was disappointing for them
“But in saying that, they got some quality game time which they don’t normally get when they are in PNG.”
Tietjens said the Palais were able to put Australia under pressure at times and scored a few good tries but could not match the size and physicality of the World Series heavyweights. – RNZ