Papua New Guinea will bring 15 teenagers from all over the Pacific island across the world to North Lanarkshire for the inaugural Rugby League Commonwealth Championship later this month.

After the final trial in Lae last week, the PNG selection committee decided on players best suited to the speedy Nines game that will test the Junior Kumuls against England, South Africa and Canada in Group B on Friday 27 June at Broadwood Stadium.

“We need to get away from the practice of picking players based on regions, trying to keep a balance for the four regions, to represent PNG in international competitions” said chairman Sandis Tsaka.

“We have to pick players based on merit and whether they fulfil the selection criteria to give us sides that we believe will be competitive at international tournaments. This is the only way forward for PNG to improve internationally and I’m very happy the national selectors have done just that.”

The team, which goes into camp on June 15 in Port Moresby, includes one payer from the PNG Hunters side making a big impact on the Queensland Cup – 17-year-old prop Stanton Albert and two Digicel Cup players in Warren Glare and Nickson Borana from Lae side, Snax Tigers.

The squad departs on June 21 for Glasgow and is scheduled to get there a three days before the two-day tournament kicks off on June 27 for further training in the vastly different conditions of Scotland and on the artificial turf of Broadwood.PNG have appointed Dennis Miall from Lae, as head coach.

Miall is currently the Schoolboys Development Officer for the Lae region and Deputy Principal at Lae Secondary School.

“Dennis has been involved at this level for three years now, knows most of the players, and has set up a rugby league academy at Lae Secondary School,” explained Tsaka. “He has successfully coached schoolboys teams on International Tours to Brisbane for the last two years. We believe he deserves a chance at this level and has now been given that opportunity. We need to identify new people and more importantly people who will maintain the high standards and code of conduct we have implemented in all of our programs.”

He also has very experienced personnel on the coaching and management team, which includes Toksy Nema and former international Philip Boge as trainers and Shane Morris as Tour Manager.

Team official is former Kumul coach Joe Tokam, a director on the PNGRFL Board.

PNG
Stanton Albert, Dickson Amea, Anderson Benford, Nickson Borana, Warren Glare, Josiah Jimmy, Toware Kaneke, Joel Kapia Kee, Ereman Ken, Lavax Ketauwo, Bali Las, Solomon Nandepe, Bill Paul, John Ragi,  Gahuna Silas

The RLCC2014 tournament at Cumbernauld’s Broadwood Stadium in North Lanarkshire is part of the Homecoming Scotland festival of events. The action starts on Friday 27 June at 1pm and finishes at 6pm. All eight teams will return the next day for the play-offs and semi-finals stage from 2pm-6pm. Entry on both days is FREE.

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Pictured: Stanton Albert will aim to make an impact in Scotland