PNG Pukpuks Sevens

PNG were dealt a blow early in the encounter when their leading try scorer at Hamilton, Gairo Kapana, was sin binned, leaving PNG a man down.

USA capitalised on this, scoring their first try through Kevon Aaron Williams. USA ran in two more tries in the first half to cruise to a 21-0 lead at the break.

USA cracked through the Pukpuks’ defence four more times in the second term through Matai Leuta, Martin Iosefo, Carlin Isles and one more to Williams.

The bulk of the team has been made up of fiery sevens talent from the New Guinea Islands.

PNG sevens have been hard at training to finalise the Pukpuks and Palais team for the upcoming HSBC Sydney sevens tournament in Australia from the 26th to the 28th of January.

While the Palais team was announced over the weekend for the women’s sevens, Pukpuks have finally released their 14 men squad for the Sydney leg of the HSBC sevens series.

Almost half of the Pukpuk 7s team is made up of players from Rabaul and Kavieng one from Manus.

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.