PNG women finish Sydney tournament winless

IT was a tough day at the office for the Papua New Guinea Palais women’s sevens team who ended their winless Sydney sevens campaign with a 41-5 loss to Japan in the 11th place playoff last Friday.
The Palais were always going to find it challenging against the top sevens teams, coupled with the fact that they played their last tournament in November last year.
The Palais, who were placed in Pool A, were soundly defeated 50-0 in their first game against France.
There was no let up for the Palais as they faced defending series champions Australia going down 50-0 again to the Olympic gold medallists.
The Palais managed a more respectable score line against Spain losing 29-0.
Coach John Larry was well aware of the task faced by his side stating that the players were unable to maintain their composure and could not stay competitive.
“It wasn’t our day today, we did badly from the start. We knew it was going to be tough against Australia and France,” Larry said.
“We were taking the wrong options, our decision making wasn’t good. We lacked discipline in the ruck and in our attack and defence and handling errors let us down.
“Playing against the top teams is important. These are teams that play on the full sevens circuit. All the teams are competitive so this experience for us is important.
“We are using these games as a build up to the Hong Kong sevens (April) and the Sevens World Cup (July). We will learn from these games, and work on the things we need to during training. We will just have to fix these things to get better,” Larry said.