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\n Samoa co-captain Junior Paulo embraced the support of fans in PNG.
\n \u00a9Scott Davis\/NRL Photos
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Junior Paulo ended up even.<\/p>\n
There was the knitted hat he was proudly wearing after the game, and the bilum around his neck. \u201cBut I don\u2019t have any shorts on and I don\u2019t have a jersey,\u201d the 32-year-old grinned after Samoa\u2019s 64-6 win over Papua New Guinea at a cacophonous Santos National Football Stadium on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Jermain McEwen took off – and signed – his boots before giving them to a cherubic pair of ball kids. Stephen Crichton was down to his undies, signing warm-up tops and singlets.<\/p>\n
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\n Samoa co-captain Junior Paulo embraced the support of fans in PNG.
\n \u00a9Scott Davis\/NRL Photos
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The plan was for the players to acknowledge the fans at fulltime but not get too close for fear of over-enthusiasm becoming a security risk. That didn\u2019t last. Spencer Leniu removed his socks for a fan who was embracing him through the fence and later climbed into the stands to pose for an entire rugby league team.<\/p>\n
Welcome to Port Moresby – home of the NRL\u2019s newest team – three days after the launch of their jersey and logo.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday a manager at Samoa\u2019s hotel – the same one that hosted the PNG Chiefs\u2019 breakfast function – could be heard telling his star-struck staff: \u201cThey\u2019ll be here all week – you\u2019ll have plenty of time to look at them\u201d.<\/p>\n
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When teams come here, whether it\u2019s for Test matches or NRL down the track, there\u2019s going to be this emphatic crowd that\u2019s going for the home team. You\u2019ve just got to embrace it, really.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tSamoa coach Ben Gardiner
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Your correspondent first came to PNG with the Australian team that toured Kokopo, Goroka, Mt Hagan, Lae and Moresby in 1991; a venture that was not only pioneering in a rugby league sense but often felt like we were doing something that not many Australians ever experience.<\/p>\n
It was never repeated and never will be.<\/p>\n
Police wanted to shoot the locks off a gate when the key was lost after one game. Tear gas wafted over the ground during another. Rocks came over the fence when the sold out sign went up at another.<\/p>\n
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The Siva Tau sounds out at Santos!<\/p>\n
The local papers ran my AAP match previews right next to the match reports the day after the games and one paper had simply photocopied Rugby League Week and republished a centre spread.<\/p>\n
Fans would sit outside the hotels shouting players\u2019 names all night: \u201cSkintight – Illawarra flash!\u201d for Rod Wishart, with a special fascination for the biggest player, Martin Bella, and the smallest, Geoff Toovey.<\/p>\n
We attended tribal meetings in the Highlands, and there were gifts thrown successfully through half-open windows of speeding minibuses.<\/p>\n
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From the field: Jarome Luai<\/p>\n
I returned in 2001 with Chris Anderson\u2019s Kangaroos – watching the Aussies\u2019 54-10 win from the reserves bench – and hadn\u2019t been back since.<\/p>\n
Bear in mind that in 1991 the Brisbane Broncos, Newcastle Knights and Gold Coast Giants were only three years old. As I was reading my story out each night to a copytaker in Sydney (\u2018that\u2019s K-U-M-U-L\u2019\u2019, full stop\u2019), no one could have conceived of Papua New Guinea having a team in the Australian competition.<\/p>\n
Much has changed. There is construction all over Port Moresby, modern hotels and offices, and Lloyd Robson Oval is now the Santos National Football Stadium.<\/p>\n
Not far from where I once sat on the bench for Australia – be thankful coach Anderson didn\u2019t need me that day – I watched the crowd cheer on Saturday the way you might greet your team winning a premiership as Samoa received the ball back from the kick-off, Gairo Voro picked up and was driven back 10 metres by three Samoans and Morea Morea caught the ball on the full.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things you can\u2019t describe because you\u2019ve just got to be here to witness it,\u201d Paulo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scenes on the way here, just outside of the stadium \u2026 seeing the kids, the smiles on their faces, you just can\u2019t get that anywhere else besides here because you just see how much it means to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t sing and chant like English crowds, but they don\u2019t just cheer tries and big hits like Australasian audiences either.<\/p>\n
Instead, there is an aural representation of absolutely everything that happens on the field – captain\u2019s challenges, players tripping over, good tackles, bad tackles, scrum wins. You could sit at the NFS in a blindfold and have a pretty good idea of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
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Kumul legend Rhyse Martin chaired off after final game in PNG<\/p>\n
In two years, this will happen every second week. And those who\u2019ve not experienced it will be shocked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of being a team that\u2019s an away team, it\u2019s going to be a challenge to come and play here\u201d said Gardiner.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually talked at halftime in terms of \u2018there\u2019s no silencing this crowd, they\u2019re here to enjoy the footy\u2019 and we had to talk internally to make sure our communication was right in bringing the game back to our terms instead of being influenced by the crowd.<\/p>\n
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The Kumuls are not taking a backward step<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen teams come here, whether it\u2019s for Test matches or NRL down the track, there\u2019s going to be this emphatic crowd that\u2019s going for the home team. You\u2019ve just got to embrace it, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
PNG Chiefs manager of football, Michael Chammas, missed Wednesday\u2019s launch with a stomach bug but was out on the field at fulltime on Saturday. He says fans here – like in Brisbane, Canberra, Townsville, Wollongong and everywhere else that got their own teams – will support the opposition at first.<\/p>\n
For visiting fans, the unbridled adulation for the game here will warm their hearts and even recharge their own passion. The barefoot kids wearing NRL merch, chasing buses carrying players – or even match officials – is hard to forget.<\/p>\n
There has been much talk in PNG of the Kokoda Track.<\/p>\n
RLPA chief Clint Newton was at the World Cup game, having just walked it with a group of Pasifika players such as Alex Glenn and Ben Murdoch-Masilla, conducting coaching clinics along the way.<\/p>\n
At Wednesday\u2019s jersey launch, PNG Chiefs chair Catherine Harris spoke of her father being rescued and carried to safety when wounded on The Track in World War II.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, PNG prime minister James Marape addressed the pachyderm in the ballroom directly: \u201cTo every Australian taxpayer, I want to say one thing: the effort of your government is not in vain.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs in 1945, we will always be there for you. This is a place of investment, of relationships, of co-existence; as it was in the past. Our children must co-exist and in sports they find that unity. Your investment will be returned in many, many ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just like Junior Paulo\u2019s investment of his shorts and jersey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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