{"id":208962,"date":"2025-10-13T00:20:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T00:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/208962\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T00:20:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T00:20:07","slug":"our-chiefs-are-coming-to-the-nrl-in-2028-says-png-pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/208962\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Chiefs are coming to the NRL in 2028, says PNG PM"},"content":{"rendered":"

The PNG Chiefs are coming to the National Rugby League competition in 2028, PNG Prime Minister James Marape says.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s name was announced at the Australia-PNG PM\u2019s XVIII match in Port Moresby on Sunday, won 28-10 by the visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a nation of 1000 tribes,\u201d Marape said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore there was a modern state called Papua New Guinea in 1975, our people lived for thousands of years under tribal structures led by chiefs \u2014 men and women \u2014 who governed, protected, and held our communities together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PNG prime minister said the name had particular appeal for them as the term can apply equally to men or women.<\/p>\n

He noted that in regions like Milne Bay, Bougainville, New Ireland, and East New Britain, women were traditionally chiefs, or clan heads, while in other areas, the chiefs were male.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name depicts our authentic cultural history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The only other name to be considered, he said, were the Pythons.<\/p>\n

NUMBERS GAME FOR CHIEFS<\/p>\n

PNG is the only country where rugby league is the national sport.<\/p>\n

The team are due to enter the NRL<\/a> in 2028, based in Port Moresby and will also have a team in the NRL Women\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n

PNG already has the Hunters, who have playing in the Queensland RL\u2019s Hostplus Cup competition since 2014 and won it in 2017.<\/p>\n

On his visit to PNG last month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese predicted the team \u201cis going to be running on the field and get on board \u2026 to do very well, very quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will have the biggest junior rugby league academy right throughout PNG that other teams are going to be very jealous of.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are aiming for one million members. My team thinks it\u2019s going pretty well, we\u2019ve got 30,000 members.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marape said the name is a fitting emblem as his country celebrates 50 years of Independence this year.<\/p>\n

A logo and team colours have yet to be confirmed.<\/p>\n

The Chiefs name already operates in Australasian professional sports; the Waikato Chiefs are a Super Rugby Pacific team based out of Hamilton on New Zealand\u2019s North Island.<\/p>\n

OUR EARLIER STORY: PNG to get a team in the NRL in 2028<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The PNG Chiefs are coming to the National Rugby League competition in 2028, PNG Prime Minister James Marape…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-208962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}