Posted By Staff Reporter
REST and recovery is all that is expected of the Papua New Guinea Prime Minister’s XIII today. Adrian Lam yesterday gave his side a day off after the morning session, as well as today, to recover. “It’s come to a point where they deserve to rest. We’ve been working them really hard in the last three days, and it is very important that they are given time to recover, before we come back and go hard at it again until match day,” Lam said. “We’re halfway done, the first half of the week is gone and we have half a week left after the break. This is part of our plan and preparation.” The break does come at a crucial time for the team, Lam pointing at the amount of work the side had gone through especially under the circumstances, and in the time frame that they had come together. Defence will be key for Lam when the side returns to the paddock tomorrow morning, and then the session later that afternoon. “We want to finish the week off in defence importantly, and understand as much as possible how we want to defend against Australia.” The only other session after Friday is the captains run on Saturday afternoon, which is traditionally the final team run before the match. Lam admitted that he had planned to play Australia according to the team that were announced originally, and by the way coach Mal Meninga would have planned accordingly. The late withdrawals and changes however, has thrown in the ‘if’, and would have been a lot of guesswork. “I’d rather worry about how we want to play, and just being able to control the way we play. The Australian side arrived in Cairns today, and will go through their paces together, before they arrive in Port Moresby tomorrow. Meanwhile the renovations at the Lloyd Robson Oval for Sunday’s PNG and Australia Prime Ministers Challenge will be completed by then.
And PNGRFL caretaker administrator Ivan Ravu has given it the thumbs up. “Preparations are going really well, the boys are working hard on the playing surface. “It is this time of the year where it gets really hard (ground surface), but we don’t want to make it too soft, to the visiting Australians advantage,” Ravu jokingly said. Work that started immediately after the Digicel Cup grand final besides daily watering and patch work on the playing surface, were the reinforcement of the stands, corporate boxes and VIP area, reserve bench upgrade and general painting. “We believe it is, and will be up to standard to host a match as big as this,” Ravu said. “We’ve also taken into consideration, visitors from Australia and other overseas countries. “Important people in rugby league from around the world will come, so we want to make sure we make an impression,” Young Achievers, an Under-16 side from the state of New South Wales, Australia will also be travelling into the country to play one of the curtain raisers before the main event on Sunday. The young team will play an Under 16 side from the Hanuabada Rugby League competition which is yet to be finalized. Papua New Guinea Women’s Rugby Football League has also shown interest to play a curtain raiser. Their interest was the opportunity to have a side from the East New Britain Rugby League play a combined side from around the country; however Ravu admitted that funding for both teams travelling into Port Moresby was a huge hurdle. He could not confirm the women’s match as curtain raiser yet, but maintained that an alternative match will be played. Comments are closed.
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