PNG Kumuls depart for World Cup

PNG Kumul Team. Getty Images

“All 22 players are fit and in good health,” PNG Kumuls general team manager Mathew Natusch said yesterday.

Natusch said the last of the Australian NRL based player arrived on Saturday. “Paul Aiton, Neville Costigan, James Segeyaro and Nene MacDonald arrived in Port Moresby on Friday while Ray Thompson joined the rest of the squad on Saturday and everybody is in fine health and are all fit to represent Papua New Guinea at the 2013 Rugby League World Cup,” Natusch said.

He said the players were put through their final paces on Saturday afternoon and were in high spirits and raring to go.

The Kumuls play a lead up match against Scotland on Saturday. “The process of organising this match has been long and involved a significant amount of negotiation and planning going into it,” Natusch said. 

”We have actually had to get special permission from the Rugby League International Federation as the match falls on the first day that teams arrive for the World Cup. The match is going to be played on October 19th at 2pm in the north England town of Featherstone,” he said.

Coach Adrian Lam said this will be a great opportunity for the squad to play for a number of reasons. “To fine tune some of the areas still needing attention, to work on combinations, it’s an opportunity to acclimatize to the weather and field conditions and importantly, it will give players a final opportunity to play well and push for selection for our first World Cup match against France on Sunday week.”

The squad leave this afternoon via Singapore for Manchester in the United Kingdon where they will be based. The two England based players Jason Chan and Menzie Yere will join their team mates when they arrive in the UK tomorrow evening.

The captain will be announced today.

Post Courier