PNG Palais

Head coach Paul Tietjens from New Zealand, said for these young women who will again wear the national colours of PNG with the same pride that they do for every tournament, the journey has been a great experience.

“The team has settled in well (after arriving on Sunday night). We have had four training sessions, where we have focused on team clarify on attack and defense.”

In the qualifying final yesterday, the Palais fell short going down to Wales 22-7, but bounced back in the afternoon with a 22-10 win over Poland.

Australia won the Super 7s tournament with a 24-10 over Fiji in the Cup final.

The two-day tournament held over the weekend had the participation of 12 international teams including Fiji, Spain, Japan, South Africa and PNG.

The Palais will now look forward to improve before the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series 2018 - Hong Kong in April of this year.

(Photo credit: Super 7s Brisbane)

The match will kick off at 12:22pm.

In results from yesterday’s round robin matches:

South Africa def. PNG Palais 22-0, England def. PNG Palais 57-0 and Sweden def. PNG Palais 32-0.

In the other qualifying finals today, Sweden will take on Poland at 12pm, England will do battle with France starting at 12:44pm and USA and South Africa have a date at 1:06pm.

Unfortunately, Palais went down to England this morning and then later lost to Japan as well.

Following three straight loses on day one of the HSBC Sydney sevens tournament, the PNG women’s team were out to improve their performances.

Pooled against Dubai sevens champions, Australia is never easy but PNG has shown a lot of courage facing France and Spain as well.

The English women handed PNG Palais their hardest lesson yet at the 2018 HSBC Sydney Sevens as day two kicked off today.

In this morning’s encounter, the French ran in eight tries to comfortably beat the Palais 50-0.

The match after lunch saw the current world champions, Australia put away the Palais with the same score line of 50-0.

The Palais will play their third and last match of the day against Spain at 3:56pm.

The HSBC Sydney Sevens is being relayed live on TVWAN Action.

Coach John Larry said speed, defence and decision-making have been some of the areas of focus in the eight weeks of training leading into the tournament.

“The 12-member team will be led by Debbie Kaore. We still have other experienced players in Freda Waula, Joanne Lagona and Lynette Kwarula,” he said.

“Our only debutant is Gemma Schnaubelt, who brings a lot of flare into the side.”

The Palais have been placed in Pool A alongside Australia, France and Spain.

Palais will face France, Australia and Spain while the PNG Pukpuks are pooled against South Africa, England and Spain.

The full match schedules for both the men's and women's HSBC Sydney Sevens 2018 have been released with 28 teams set to compete across three action-packed days on 26-28 January.

Fans will be treated to 79 matches as the Allianz Stadium plays host to Sydney's biggest festival of rugby across Australia Day weekend.

A late inclusion trying out for a spot in the Palais team was young touch footballer Gemma Schnaubelt.

Schnaubelt first featured at the 2017 National Touch Championships.

She played for the Brisbane based team and was recently invited by the PNG 7s team to try out.

She is the daughter of Namatanai MP Walter Schnaubelt.

She arrived from Brisbane this afternoon before taking the field.

A little jetlagged, Schnaubelt joined the rest of the players in the selection trials under head coach John Larry.

Due to the in fights of PNG Rugby Football Union, much of the squad has been based and carried over from the 2016/2017 calendar year of tournaments.

The 20-man team has been finalised after the staging of recent tournaments in 2017, including NCDRU satellite 7s, Oceania 7s and the PNG games.

Both the men and the women’s PNG sevens teams are preparing for the  HSBC 7s World Series tournament in Sydney but the sad fact is that, for such a successful sporting code, both teams are without a major sponsor.

Despite coming fourth out of eight teams at the Oceania Rugby Sevens Championships in Fiji, the Palais still finished as the highest placed women’s team (outside of Australia, Fiji and New Zealand).

Results from day two:

Australia def. PNG Palais 25-7 (semi-final), Fiji def. PNG Palais 39-0 (third and fourth playoff).

As for the PNG Pukpuks, they finished fifth out of 13 teams. It’s also good news for the Pukpuks, who have qualified for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, 2018 Rugby World Cup 7s and HSBC Men’s Sevens World Series 2017/18.

Results from day two: