BOLSTERING elite pathways, commercial revenue and developing better coaches and leaders are key aims of the Papua New Guinea Rugby Football League (PNGRFL) over the next five years.
These were the main takeaways, as well as the continued building and strengthening of the women’s game, from the launch of the league’s five-year plan in Port Moresby yesterday.
While the SP PNG Hunters programme was started with funding by the National Government a decade ago with its main purpose to provide exposure for local talent to a higher level competition, the Australian Government is now set to play a bigger role in PNG rugby league over the next five years.
Marc Portus is the PNGRFL’s High Performance general manager who will be heading the plan and the Australian Government through its Pacific AusSports programme will fund the high performance plan of 2023-2027.
Australian High Commission councilor for programme strategy and gender, Krishni Goonesena, said yesterday that her government had confidence in the new plan that it would unlock the next generation of rugby league champions.
“Australia was pleased to hear of PNG’s aspiration to join National Rugby League (NRL) and we would love to see this become a reality,” she said.
“PNG’s success in this will involve building endurable pathway and access to high performance sports for PNG athletes and the PNGRFL High Performance plan will then pave the way for this success.
“Rugby league has been a binding force in bilateral relationship between Australia and PNG for over 50 years and that’s is why we’ve continued to support rugby league programmes here for the past decade.”
PNGRFL chief executive Stanley Hondina said a survey had been done before coming up with the plan.
Hondina said the new plan was in line with what the fans and stakeholders of rugby league in PNG would want for the game.
Queensland Rugby League (QRL) manager government relations Arthur Eustace-Earle said the journey to establish the plan started in 2019 and that he was pleased to finally see it start.
“It’s been a lengthy process to come up with the plan but now I think we can put rugby league in PNG in strong position to grow.
“The Hunters bring more excitement in our competition (Hostplus Cup). We are in support of this plan and we really want to see the end result.
“We believe it will produce results. We thank the Australian Government for supporting this.”
Portus said the plan would face challenges along the way but believed once the code progressed across the targeted areas PNG would not be the same.
“Part of our longer plan strategic vision going right through 2030 is to build, transition and own,” he said.
“The first phase is help in building the system, a lot of work has been here in the last 10 years by PNGRFL.
“We will build high performance pathway for females as well males but big focus will be on equalising female participation in rugby league in PNG.”
News source www.thenational.com.pg
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