Inaugural board named for Papua New Guinea NRL franchise ahead of 2028 debut
Photo:
Office of the Prime Minister, PNG
The inaugural board members of the Papua New Guinea rugby league franchise, set to make its debut in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition in 2028, includes a number of business and industry leaders in both PNG and Australia.
Chaired by Ray Dib, the current seven-member Board announced by the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC), includes former PNG professional rugby league player Marcus Bai.
The board announcement was made in Port Moresby on Tuesday by the ARLC chairman Peter V'landys AM and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo, alongside PNG Prime Minister James Marape and Australian Minister for Pacific Island Affairs Pat Conroy.
The first-ever board members of the PNG franchise are Dib (chairman), Lorna McPherson, Richard Pegum, Stan Joyce, Wapu Sonk, Ian Tarutia and Marcus Bai.
Dib is a former Canterbury Bulldogs, Bai is a PNG Kumuls legend who won premierships with Melbourne Storm and Leeds Rhinos.
The oher board members McPherson is a Digicel PNG vice-president , Joyce is current PNG Hunters chair, Pegum is an Australian finance and investment professional, while Sonk is Kumul Petroleum managing director, with Tauritia being the NASFUND chief executive.
An eighth independent director will still be appointed by the Board itself, after considering which additional skills the board requires.
The NRL said the announcement is a major milestone and sets the franchise on a path to great success both on and off the field.
What that means is work on the franchise can now start in earnest, with two years to go before the team enters the competition proper.
V'landys said the new NRL Club will provide a pathway for young people in PNG to follow their dreams and it will help transform societal and economic outcomes, bringing the two countries of PNG and Australia together.
"The importance of this franchise goes well beyond winning games of football, it is about nation building and bringing our two countries closer together," V'landys said.
"This is an important moment for the NRL as PNG is set up to become a nursery of talent in the region for the entire competition, not to mention the millions of fans that will now follow a new team entering the competition.
"This Club will act as beacon of hope and opportunity across PNG and offer opportunity to young people hoping for a better future."
Conroy said the PNG NRL team will be a catalyst for economic growth, creating jobs and boosting tourism.
"Together with PNG, we are building more than a team - we are building a legacy and underscoring our shared interest in stable and prosperous region."
The board announcement was made in Port Moresby on Tuesday by the ARLC chairman Peter V'landys AM and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo, alongside PNG Prime Minister James Marape and Australian Minister for Pacific Island Affairs Pat Conroy.
Photo:
Office of the Prime Minister, PNG
Marape also announced a competition giving fans the opportunity to vote for the name of the PNG franchise.
He has tasked the new board of the nation's NRL franchise with launching the competition, and said the name must reflect the shared history and values of Australia and PNG, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of independence on 16 September.
"I have my own views towards what should be the team name, but…11 million people must decide on the name of the team," he said.
"It must be a name that at least 50 percent, 60 percent or 70 percent of the country supports. It must not just be a name, there must be a motif behind the name.
"The strategy is about uniting our people and uniting PNG with Australia forever, and so you must have the name resonate with this reason; something that every child, it doesn't matter where he or she comes from, identifies with going forward and every Australian also has an affinity for this name.
"I want children of this country to find a name that resonates with our shared past, our present today and where we are going into the future as two people living side by side in this part of planet Earth, where after so much violence in other parts of the earth, we want to keep our Pacific a safe, clean place for our children to live and co-exist."
The board announcement was made in Port Moresby on Tuesday by the ARLC chairman Peter V'landys AM and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo, alongside PNG Prime Minister James Marape and Australian Minister for Pacific Island Affairs Pat Conroy.
Photo:
Office of the Prime Minister, PNG
ARLC Chair V'landys has predicted the PNG team entering the NRL in 2028 could rival Penrith after visiting the proposed site for accommodation and a Centre of Excellence in Port Moresby.
V'landys and NRL CEO Abdo looked at the facilities where the team's players and their families would live and train in.
NRL said the duo believe the NRL's 19th franchise will be competitive from the outset, particularly with tax exemptions offered by the PNG Government.
V'landys noted that the Junior Kumuls, whose side included two players from the Queensland Under-19s team in Phillip Coates and Cooper Bai, had a 22-22 draw with the Australian Schoolboys last October.
The Junior Kumuls, featuring another Queensland Under-19s player with PNG heritage in Sam Stephenson, narrowly lost 20-16 to the Australian Schoolboys in 2023.
"From my perspective, the Australian Schoolboys side has always been very powerful and has always brought the elite players," V'landys said.
"Most of the first grade players in the NRL came through the schoolboys system, and for the Papua New Guinea team to draw with them is an extraordinary event.
"If that's an example of the future, Papua New Guinea will dominate, and that's what we're worried about. We're not worried about them being competitive. We're worried about them dominating because they could be the next Penrith, easily.
"You've got 12 million people that you can call upon in juniors. Our job is to produce those players, so we're going to put our former players into the schools, we're going to start local competitions, we're going to entice young kids to go to school and give them an opportunity to play in the NRL."
He said there will be a lot of interest from some top players in the NRL because of the salary cap exemptions for clubs to sign up to two pathways players from Papua New Guinea, while there is also funding to develop the vast untapped talent pipelines in PNG.
"We're very confident we're going to attract some marquee players and having the tax exemption is very important because that will motivate those players to bring their families over to Papua New Guinea to play," V'landys said.
With the Board in place, there is now going to be more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
27 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Will the government's changes bring down building costs?
Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said the change would have the potential to reduce total building costs by thousands of dollars. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Opposition parties say while the devil will be in the details on the government's latest building products changes, they support in principle what looks like a "sensible" change. But Labour and the Greens are also criticising the coalition's cancellation of hundreds of construction projects, saying that is what has led to a downturn in the industry. They also say delaying changes to the Building Code will mean New Zealand lags behind the rest of the world. The government on Sunday announced it would be releasing a list of overseas certification schemes that would automatically qualify products for use in New Zealand . Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said the list would "have the potential to reduce total building costs by thousands of dollars when building a home". "There are thousands of well-made, high performing products that have been tested against rigourous international standards but have faced barriers for uptake here, purely because they have not been specifically tested against our own standards. From tomorrow it will be much easier to use plasterboard manufactured in New Zealand, Australia, UK, Europe and the United States," he said. "This is just the beginning of our work to open the door to more building products, lower the cost of homes and turbo charge the construction sector and there will be more to come." He also announced a pause on "any new major changes to the Building Code system" and shifting instead to a "predictable three-year cycle for Building Code system updates". "This new approach will give businesses the clarity they need to prepare in advance, rather than constantly having to react to unexpected rule changes." The government will be releasing releasing a list of overseas certification schemes that would automatically qualify products for use in New Zealand. Photo: 123RF ACT's Building and Construction spokesperson Cameron Luxton was a builder in 2022 during the plasterboard crisis that saw some builders paying six times the standard price for 'GIB' branded plasterboard. "I had designers trying to get changes to the existing consents so that we could use other types of wall lining ... if we could have recognized overseas plaster boards and the components around their systems, we would have been able to get things built in New Zealand a lot easier and a lot quicker during that time," he said. "Those crazy days of the post-Covid building construction boom with us at the moment but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be focusing on getting the price of all building down." ACT's Building and Construction spokesperson Cameron Luxton Photo: VNP / Phil Smith He said the government's approach was almost exactly the same as what ACT campaigned on. "What we campaigned on was a recognised list of products. The bill came into the house as that, it's been through select committee, we've come out the other side with it being schemes, standards and products. "Minister Penk has done an incredibly good job engaging with the industry and making sure that this bill works - it's so close to ACT's you couldn't find much air between our original policy and this one, it's the same principle, called some different things." Both Labour and the Greens supported the bill through the legislative process. Labour's Building and Construction spokesperson Arena Williams said it was likely to make it easier for building products to get into the New Zealand market, and increase competition - but that doing so was one of the recommendations of the Commerce Commission study launched under Labour. "We think this is an important step, but the government has talked a big game on lowering the cost of building because that's an excuse for absolutely collapsing the building and construction sector and seeing 17,000 jobs lost since the day of the election." She pointed to a range of projects that had been cut - Kāinga Ora public housing, school builds, the downgrading of hospital builds - saying that had directly led to those jobs being lost. Labour's Building and Construction spokesperson Arena Williams. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith The minister was now admitting the solution would not be a silver bullet for the sector, she said. "Now they're saying this will only be part of the solution and it won't do everything that's needed to bring costs down ... they have no answer for a building and construction sector that's on its knees, it's slumped lower than it did in the global financial crisis, and we're seeing thousands of young Kiwi builders going offshore." Announcing the change without releasing the detail until the next day was "an unusual way to do things," she said. Williams said she planed to carefully examine the standards when made public, to ensure they were sensible. Green Party Building and Construction spokesperson Julie Anne Genter took her criticism of the approach further. "We see every week pretty much announcements on a Sunday don't have any substantive new actions or information, and in the last few weeks, it's been related to the building sector or infrastructure, because the government is desperate to turn around the narrative. "This is very much a government that is focused on PR spend more than substance." She said the changes themselves "could be great or it could be terrible, depending on which building products and which licensing schemes they're looking at". "The devil will be in the detail. The detail hasn't yet been released. But I really can say that the government has put the construction sector in a terrible position by cancelling hundreds of projects related to public homes, which we need now more than ever. I saw last month, one third of company liquidations for construction firms, and that was up on last year." She criticised the pause on Building Code changes. "That is a huge lost opportunity. The previous government had a work programme on building for climate change and it was going to address a lot of the issues that we have in terms of energy efficiency, resilience," she said. "The certainty is we're not moving forward with our Building Code, they're providing the certainty that we're going to lag behind most other countries and have a much longer period before we have sustainable, healthy buildings." "Ultimately, this is not enough to help New Zealand with the problems we're facing when they've cancelled so many public home builds." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
NZ Herald
13 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Kiwi sports reporter Tiffany Salmond questions Fox Sports' decision after alleged NRL reporting snub
A Kiwi sports reporter based in Australia has publicly questioned why her former employer Fox Sports refuses to sign her on to cover the 2025 NRL season. Tiffany Salmond, 27, told the Sydney Morning Herald that while female NRL reporters 'must toe the line of being attractive, but not too
RNZ News
14 hours ago
- RNZ News
Australian Prime Minister says easing of curbs on US beef not prompted by Trump
By Sam McKeith , Reuters The review had been in the works for 10 years, Albanese said (file image). Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says a decision to ease rules on US beef imports was not prompted by US President Donald Trump. This week, Trump said the US would sell "so much" beef to Australia , after Canberra announced the relaxation of restrictions, potentially smoothing trade talks with Washington. In place since 2003, the curbs were due to concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy - or mad cow disease - which could kill cattle, as well as people who eat infected beef. When asked if the easing had anything to do with Trump, Albanese said: "No, this has been a process that has been there for 10 years, the review process." "This wasn't a political decision," Albanese said to Australian Broadcasting Corp television, adding that Trump had not raised the issue with him in a phone call. The comments come after US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called the easing a win for Trump. In April, Trump singled out the beef trade disparity with Australia, after Australia's beef exports to the US surged last year, reaching AU$4 billion (NZ$4.36b) amid a slump in US beef production. By contrast, Australia's agriculture minister said the rules were relaxed, after a "rigourous science and risk-based assessment" concluded US measures to monitor and control cattle movement were effectively managing biosecurity risks. News of Australia changing its policy was first reported by the Australian Financial Review . The report said Australia would use the easing of rules to argue its case for the US to wind back 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium, and Trump's threat to impose a 200 percent tariff on pharmaceuticals. The National Party - part of Australia's conservative opposition coalition - said "biosecurity should not be political" and called for an independent scientific panel to review the decision. A loosening of beef import rules is not expected to boost US shipments significantly, because Australia is a major beef producer and exporter, whose prices are much lower, according to analysts. Last year, Australia shipped almost 400,000 metric tons of beef worth US$2.9b (NZ$4.82b) to the United States, with just 269 tons of US product moving the other way. - Reuters
