Wednesday, 30 July 2014

PNG medals at the Commonwealth Games - Glasgow 2014

Papua New Guinea's first medal was a Silver for weightlifter Dika Toua in the Women's 53kg on the 25th July 2014. There is still a chance that this may be upgraded with the gold medallist having tested positive for some substances.

On 29th July there was another weightlifting medal for PNG, with Steven Kukuna Kari winning a Gold in the Men's 94kg category. This moved Papua New Guinea up to 16th position in the medals table (as of 29/7/14).

Hopefully there will be some more to add to this list as the games go on. Go PNG!

What's in a name?

Like the All Blacks, the British Lions and the Springboks, the Papua New Guinea rugby teams have nicknames. The Rugby League teams are called "The Kumuls" after the bird of paradise that graces the PNG flag. The bird can be also seen on the team's badge.


The Rugby Union teams (including my much loved Sevens side) are nicknamed "The Pukpuks" which is the Tok Pisin word for crocodile. Their mascot animal appears on the team's badge as well.


Cricket is another huge sport in PNG and the nickname of their main team is the Barramundis, however unlike the teams above, the barramundi fish isn't on the cricketing logo. Instead it's a lovely stylised kumul bird of paradise blended with a cricket ball knocking the bails of three stumps.



Other teams have animal-based nicknames too, the Football (Soccer) team nickname is "The Kapuls" which is a type of possum and the Australian Rules team is called "The Binatangs". As binatang means mosquito in Tok Pisin, they are also called "The Mozzies".

Have I got all these right? Have I missed any? Let me know in the comments section below.

Tuesday, 29 July 2014

Profile Pick: Dika Toua

A lovely video about the Olympic journey of PNG weightlifter Dika Toua who won Silver at Glasgow 2014.



Monday, 28 July 2014

Glasgow 2014 Rugby Sevens - The Experience

Despite the threat of rain, when my husband Richard and I arrived in Glasgow on Saturday morning for the Rugby Sevens it was gloriously sunny. Immediately after getting off the train we joined a queue for the Subway which looked worryingly long, though it moved at a fairly swift pace. Everyone on their way to Ibrox at this point was running late. The tournament started at 10.32 with New Zealand vs Canada and many people missed the legendary Haka that kicked off the event. The journey wasn't too bad, and I used the time to apply my Papua New Guinea attire - a flag transfer to my face and a large flag about my shoulders.

By the time we arrived there had already been two matches and we settled in to watch Kenya vs the Cook Islands. It was a very one-sided game that ended 28 - 0 but my excitement came from spying three PNG fans sat a few seats in front of me. I ran down and asked them for a quick photo and happily they agreed.



Next up was our beloved Papua New Guinea (or Pukpuks) playing a strong Samoan team. A gentleman behind us commented that this was the first evenly matched game so far that morning and although they didn't win, PNG notched up a creditable 14 against Samoa's 33. Billy Torea and Hensley Peter scored tries, one in each half and Emmanuel Guise converted both.

Image: BBC. Watch the clip (UK Only)

Throughout the day the queue for the bar at Ibrox was much shorter than the one for the food stand, so by the time the second PNG match came round I was a little tipsy. The game came after England and Scotland played their only morning matches (against Sri Lanka and New Zealand), and some people had started to drift off home. Determined to boost the atmosphere in our bit of the stand I shook out my flags and even tried to start a chant of "Oh, Papua New Guinea" that I'd picked up at the Rugby League World Cup. Only a few people joined in, but I think I made some people smile with my antics. I even had a couple of requests from people wanting my photo, which made it all worthwhile!

I'd like to think that it was my support that won PNG this game, but in truth they were a better team than Malaysia, who had also been trounced by Wales earlier that day. I was glad that the crowd didn't turn against the Pukpuks as they had two players sin-binned which could have made them out to be the "baddies" of the game. Fortunately they won the game 36 - 7 with 31 of those points coming in the second half, making for an exciting seven minutes for me!

We left after their win, and headed on foot back towards Glasgow feeling like we'd had a good dose of good rugby. When we applied for our Sevens tickets in 2013 we weren't sure which teams were participating, never mind which sessions they were to play in. To have a double helping of PNG games on our Sevens ticket was very tasty indeed!

Postscript: On the walk back a family of PNG fans said hello and asked if I'd been the person singing in the stadium. I couldn't deny it!

Glasgow 2014 Rugby Sevens - The Facts

The first weekend of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games saw the Rugby Sevens tournament at Ibrox. Usually home to Glasgow Rangers Football Club, the stadium was host to 45 games over two days - and hosted fans from all 16 of the competing countries. In brief, Rugby Sevens is a game of Rugby Union, where two teams of 7 players battle on a full size pitch for two seven-minute halves. In this tournament the teams were as follows:

Pool A New Zealand, Canada, Scotland, Barbados
Pool B South Africa, Kenya, Cook Islands, Trinidad and Tobago
Pool C Samoa, Wales, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia
Pool D England, Australia, Sri Lanka, Uganda

The Glasgow 2014 website has the Team Sheet and Results of the PNG Rugby Sevens team

Sunday, 27 July 2014

How PNG came into my life.

Papua New Guinea has always had a fascination for me as it was the country in which two of my cousins were born. For my sister and I, branches of two very English family trees, this was exotic and exciting, and expanded our connections to the big wide world in a way that just reading about a place never could.

Although our cousins moved to Australia at a very young age, it felt to me that their new home was less in need of my allegiance. As I started paying more attention to international sporting events, where these divisions are emphasised, it was obvious that Australia had enough support, it was PNG that needed to be championed.

In 2013, I bought a couple of the glorious red, black and gold flags, and some matching temporary tattoos, and set out to support PNG in the Rugby League World cup game at Headingley. That was the start of my journey, and a story for another time...