Ugas raring to go

THE Niue rugby team touched down in Port Moresby yesterday and had the look of a well-balanced team with Wellington-based captain Luka Gibb upbeat about his team’s chances at the Oceania Cup.
“We’ve come together quite well and had a good preparation for the time we’ve had and we’re pretty happy with our progress so far,” Gibb said.
The 28-year-old hooker, who plays for Hutt Old Boys Marist in New Zealand, said the Ugas, which is Niuean for coconut crab, said although the majority of the side were from Niue several were from Auckland and Wellington.
Gibb played for Niue when they last played the Pukpuks in Niue in 2008 which PNG won 46-17.
 “We played that game in Niue.
“It was close for a while but it blew out in the last 20 minutes but we’ll come and redeem ourselves, hopefully,” he said.
“It’s a new team, a young team this year, and we’re looking more at a development process bringing some of the young blood through.
“Only a handful of us remain from that game last time,” Gibb said.
On the preparations Gibb said the draw would be hard on the players.
“First things first we’ve got to get used to the heat.
“It’s pretty hot here and its quite a hard draw because we’ve got three games in one week so we’ll take it day by day and go from there,” Gibb said.
Ugas coach Clinton Chapman was concise in his assessment saying he had experienced players from New Zealand as well as “inexperienced” players from Niue.
“We’re here to play footy and do the best we can with the squad we have,” Chapman said.
“We’ve got some experienced players from New Zealand with a mixture of some inexperienced players from back home.
“We played them (Pukpuks) in 2008 so we know a little bit about them but the other two we don’t anything about them so I guess we’ll have to  wait and play them on the day and see how it goes,” he said.
Chapman said interestingly there was a Niuean connection to Port Moresby with some descendents of Niuean missionaries still living in Hanuabada.
“There is a Niuean community here who first came here as missionaries before and they are from Hanuabada and hopefully there is some relatives we can get together with.
“There’s a few players with relatives that come from Hanuabada,” Chapman said.