Kumuls in For 4 Nations

The Papua New Guinea Kumuls have now made it to the Four Nations Tournament for next year 2010 after comfortably beating the Cook Islanders 42 points to 10. Gold Cold Titans Winger and PNG's crowd favouraite, David Mead stole the show with three tries to his name with a man of the match performance. David and two try hero, Menzie Yere were outstanding today in a game that saw the Cooks throwing all they had but PNG had the upper hand with experience, the crowd and the heat behind them.

Tongans Dethroned

The pre-Pacific Cup tournaments favorites, Mate Ma'a Tonga side boasting several seasoned NRL campaigners succumbed to its second defeat, this time at the hands of a spirited Fiji Batis side yesterday at the PRL grounds with a 24-14 scoreline.
The Tongans were equal to the task in defencse and attach with Paramatta Eels star Feleti Mateo orchestrating play with some brilliant individual line breaks, but the Fijians were vigilant on his attacking raids and didn't give him room to progress.
Necastle Knights winger, Aquila Uate was outstanding for Batis, bagging a double for the and was unstopable when in possession of the ball.
Fiji is now the third ranked nation in the Pacifc folowed by Tonga. PNG and Cook Islands will battle out this afternoon for the First and and Second spots.

Fijian supporters celebrate their victory.

Kumuls Win Convincingly

The Telikom PNG Kumuls hammered the Tongans today, 44-14. The Kumuls held on an halftime lead of 20-4, to add the extra 24 points to claim the right to play in the Pacific Cup Finals. PNG will now take on Cook Islands, who apparently ousted the Fiji Batis yesterday with a score of 24 points to 22 to book a spot in the final.
Watching from the sideline, I was jubilant that the Kumuls have lived up to what was expected of them and that is to give 110% effort into this game. They actually delivered and I must commend them.
The standouts were debutant, Richard Kembo, Menzie Yere, Anton Kui, Jesse Joe, Rodney Pora, Jason Chan and crowd favorite, David Mead.
Two try hero, Menzie Yere got the Man-of-the match.

Menzie: Our Hero

If you ever wondered how Menzie Yere got contracted to play in the U.K after the World Cup last year, then let me tell you how it all began.
I was lucky enough to catch up with Menzie after he arrived in the country last Thursday. I spent the whole evening chatting with him about how he fared in the U.K before he flew off to Mt. Hagen the next day to link up with the Resident Kumuls for the PNG Origin Challenge.
Menzie actually got there (U.K) through Dave Campbell, his agent in Australia. Dave, a very good friend of Trevor Exton another member of the Kumuls World Cup Team and through Menzie's close association with Trevor during the WC Tournament, he got himself acquainted to Dave who later negotiated for a contract for both players with the Sheffield Eagles.
Menzie has been very impressive in his first year stint with the Eagles, taking out the player of the year award as well as the Champagne moment as mentioned in the two previous posts. He also made the all-star team for the 2009 season and nominated for the Player of the Year for the Co-operative Challenge Shield but missed out. That's a remarkable feat for a Papua New Guinean and I am very proud of these achievements.
Menzie has earned huge respect at the club and from the Co-operative League competition. His aggressive defense has left countless players concussed and taken off the field. He is the fans' favourite wonder boy from Niugini. All Eagles merchandise with Menzie's name on has sold out. Fans even go to the extent of writing out his name on anything they could lay their hands on.
He has set the perfect precedence that has caught the attention of other clubs. Some are actually interested in a few of our players and negotiations are still underway.
Good on you Menzie for being a great sports ambassador for PNG and setting very impressive records just in your first year in U.K.

Internationals Bag Third Title

The annual PNG Origin Clash saw the Telikom Xcess Internationals winning the challenge 24-20 in front of a capacity crowd of over 10,000 vocal rugby league fans.

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Menzie Yere Wins Double Honors

This morning, I got an email from Simon Proctor, the General Manager for Sheffield Eagles, the Rugby League Club in UK which our very own league export, Menzie Yere plays for.

Here is what Simon wrote:

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PNG Origin Sides Named

The PNG Place of Origin Clash is slated for this Sunday at the Kagamuga Show Ground in Mount Hagen. The Kumuls team to take part in the Pacific Cup will be selected from this game. However, some of PNG's high profile players like Stanley Gene, Paul Aiton, Makali Aizue, Nevile Costigan, Michael Mark and Nicko Slain are unavailable due to injuries or other commitments but will be still considered if the players selected in the Origin clash do not perform well enough to press for selection. This is according to the PNG Selectors.

Here is a list of the two selected sides.

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