Posted By Staff Reporter
INTRUST Super Cup players, don't start ordering your passports just yet.
A post on the Intrust Super Cup Facebook page yesterday afternoon announced a Papua New Guinea-based club would take part in the 2014 Queensland Intrust Super Cup season. Intrust Super Cup CEO Jamie O'Connor however denied that a decision had been made and deleted the post from the competition's Facebook page shortly after. O'Connor said a Papua New Guinea team had been given conditional approval to enter the competition next season, but the move had not been confirmed. "I'm not sure where that post has come from, it hasn't come from us," O'Connor said moments after deleting the post. "We've given PNG conditional approval to enter the competition next year. The position that we've stated over the last six weeks is still in the same position. "We won't approve the expansion of the competition until we know the outcome of the whole-of-game review which is being headed up by Jim Doyle. "We are aware that PNG have made an announcement today themselves, that they've made some fanfare about being in the competition but we distance ourselves from that announcement because we don't think that now is the right time. "I've just noticed it now and deleted the post because it's not appropriate for us to making announcements like that whether it's been posted on our Facebook page or whether it's been accidentally posted by our media team, I don't know." The planned PNG side would be based at Port Moresby's Lloyd Robson Oval and will be able to recruit players from Australia, but the team is expected to be largely made up of local players. Capras operations manager Walson Carlos said the move to expand the game into PNG- the only country in the world where rugby league is the national sport - was a positive move. "It's positive for the competition if it does eventuate," he said. "It opens up a lot of opportunities on the field and commercially for the competition. "Some of the clubs are a bit sceptical about it but I think it's a good thing for the competition." O'Connor said decisions based on the findings of Doyle's review would be handed down mid-November. Queensland State of Origin coach and PNG Kumuls assistant Mal Meninga was in favour of the idea. "Having a PNG team playing in the ISC would just do wonders for the programs that they have in place up there," Meninga wrote in a newspaper column earlier this year. "It creates another pathway. They can play footy, earn money, and get recognised and go on to bigger and better things." Comments are closed.
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