PNG taste beach v’ball on world stage

PAPUA New Guinea teams got their first taste of world class beach volleyball after three days of intense competition against top-ranked teams Germany, Norway and Spain in the New Zealand Open Beach Volleyball tournament in Mt Maunganui.

PNG’s Ravu Mahuru and Gerea Kila formed Team One and Moha Mea and Manly Kapa made up Team Two. PNG’s replacement player Ake Walo, paired with New Zealand’s Adam Morgan.

Eliminations were held last Friday to cut down on the number of teams to 16. The PNG pairs progressed comfortably in their elimination rounds after defeating local teams.

Although PNG Two was defeated by Spain, an injury sustained by one of the Spanish players forced their withdrawal, allowing Mea and Kapa to progress. Walo and Morgan defeated Germany Two but were taken out by PNG One.

In the tournament proper, Mahuru and Kila took on Germany One, currently ranked third in the world.

The PNG pair served off to a slow start, not responding to the heavy attack of the Germans. Midway through the first set, Mahuru and Kila, switched on and put some brick-wall defence which kept the spectators entertained.

The experienced Germans quickly changed their strategy and cruised on to win the first set convincingly 21-11.

PNG One came out in the second set with guns blazing from all corners of the court but could not maintain the fire power and conceded to Germany 21-15.

Mahuru and Kila also went down to New Zealand Two 2-0 but defeated New Zealand Development side 2-nil and PNG Two 2-1.

PNG’s second pair of Moha Mea and Manly Kapa took on Norway in their pool and kept their opponents running all over the court with sneaky poker shots (placings).

However, the Norwegians proved too strong for our boys and won the game convincingly 2-0. Mea and Kapa also took on New Zealand Two and PNG One and lost 2-0 and 2-1 respectively, but came back to defeat New Zealand Development 2-0.

PNG Volleyball Federation president Turaho Morea said: "We were fortunate to be fully sponsored by the PNG Sports Federation & Olympic Committee and travel a week ahead of the Olympic qualifiers so that our teams could take on some of the world’s leading teams for exposure.

"Other countries that took part in the New Zealand Open included the United States, Great Britain, Netherlands, Spain and Vanuatu. Some of these nations have already qualified for the London Olympics but were taking part in such tournaments to train and improve their world rankings.

"It was certainly a humbling experience and I am confident the boys know what they need to do in order to make it in the top three in the qualifiers," he said.

PNG will line up against Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu in round two of the Olympic qualifiers.

The top three progress to the third qualifier to be held in China in June.