Stop poaching: Sir Peter

The National Sports

By NATHAN WOTI
ENGA Mioks patron Sir Peter Ipatas says the Digicel Cup clubs should not poach players from other clubs but instead work to develop the talent in the province.
Sir Peter made the comment at a press conference last Monday during a presentation of K30,000 by the New Britain Palm Oil (NBPOL) to the Coca-Cola Ipatas Cup (CCIC) in Port Moresby.
Sir Peter, who is the founder of the CCIC, said the tournament he initiated 18 years ago was to provide an opportunity for local talent in Enga to trial for the Mioks squad.
He urged other provinces to run similar tournaments.
“We started the Ipatas Cup competition to create a platform for our local boys to come through,” he said. “Through that we identify players to play for the Mioks. We don’t go around poaching players.”
The Enga Governor said it was not fair on clubs who spent time and resources to develop talent ended up losing them to clubs who offered them more money.
He said it would be nice to see franchises put time and effort into developing the talent in their provinces.
“It shouldn’t be a one-sided thing. We (Mioks) seem to be a club that produces players and other provinces usually comes and gets them.”
Ipatas said the Mioks had the money to purchase other players, but he did not believe in that and preferred that the club focused on building up its talent pool in Enga.

One thought on “Stop poaching: Sir Peter”

  • I think this isn’t fair. When we go on our provinces, there will be a lot of conflicts, provincialism, violence and so on. Sport is a arena where it creates conducive environment for people from different works of life to meet and support. They not only support teams but some do support players. Having mixture of PNG local boys in any club is a perfect idea. If we are to follow Sir Peter’s advice, I think rugby won’t go any further. Perfect example could be Justin Olam from Simbu playing for Lae Snax Tigers and was selected into hunters and later into QRL and NRL. It’s always good to have mixture of players from all over PNG. If not Engans will always be Engans themselves alone and vice versa to other provinces. It all depends on talent of players. Playing with pride as a Kumul is best.

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