Rugby union should learn from soccer

I WAS looking at the results of two PNG women’s teams participating in two international competitions recently and feel strongly that one code has to learn much from the other to lift its ranking in the region.
I was watching highlights from OFC Nation’s Cup (Soccer) in New Caledonia and read of the Oceania Rugby Women’s 15s Championship in Fiji and feel that PNG rugby’s coaching team and players must learn from women’s soccer and lift their continuous poor performance.
The match results for the soccer team are: PNG 5 Samoa 0, PNG 6 New Caledonia 2, PNG 3 Frenjh Polynesia 1.
The match results for rugby union are: Samoa 56 PNG 45, Tonga 62 PNG 26 and Fiji 96 PNG 0.
That is to say, PNG women’s soccer team won all their pool matches while PNG women’s rugby team lost all their games, with ugly-looking scores.
It is time that PNG women’s rugby realises that we cannot beat the Samoans, Tongans and Fijians in rugby union by following the same game-plan that they use.
We must be creative and innovative and structure a game-plan that works well for us, people who are relatively smaller but faster.
If we need much bigger girls in the rucks and mauls, we must strategise and come up with a programme to enlist such girls and motivate them to provide the force up front that we need.
Otherwise, if we need a game-plan, it must be for smaller and faster players.
In soccer, they have been doing that superbly for decades and PNG women’s soccer is one of the best in the region, after New Zealand.
Other codes (or team sports) that are not performing well in the region must learn and do likewise.
We have to change the way we play and not copy other nations with how they structure their game.
We must realise that if we continue to play the same kind of game that we have been used to playing for the past 20 years, we are not going anywhere.
We have to be creative and innovative.

Sports enthusiast