PNG sides not prepared: Coach

A LACK of quality preparations leading up to the Oceania Under-18 Hockey Oceania Youth Olympic qualifiers was the reason for Papua New Guinea men’s and women’s poor performance.
PNG women’s team coach Paula Naron said the other teams — Australia, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands — were well prepared unlike the hosts.
“I think we did not prepare well for this tournament. The other countries were training two months prior to coming here,” Naron said.
“For PNG, we started training as a team a week before the tournament.
“So the players that were selected in the other centres (Lae, Rabaul, Kimbe) outside of Port Moresby were doing their own training before they actually joined up. With four days before the games started, we came together in Port Moresby.
That’s just four days for bonding, it wasn’t enough.
“All in all I think the boys picked up well but the girls they did very well in their second game against Australia.
“And then against Solomon Islands in the bronze medal playoff they did well to finish off with a bronze.
“If we had been preparing for a longer period within the space of months, we would have seen some different scores,” she said.
Naron said the selection was done according to the age group where selectors went to different associations in the provinces and found the players who were elligible to represent the country at Under-18 level. With only four countries taking part all participating teams had the chance to contest for medals.
Australia’s men’s and women’s sides dominated the tournament as expected, going undefeated while Vanuatu men’s and women’s finished second respectively.
In the bronze medal playoffs PNG women’s beat Solomon Islands to claim the bronze while Solomon Islands men’s came from behind to beat PNG 4-3 to win the bronze.
Playoff results: Men – Gold medal playoff: Australia 16 Vanuatu 0; Bronze medal playoff: Solomon Islands 4 PNG 3; Women – Gold medal playoff: Australia 29 Vanuatu 0; Bronze medal playoff: PNG 5 Solomon Islands 1.