A pair of long-range intercepts helped Papua New Guinea to a 22-10 victory over Fiji on Saturday night, marking a dream start to their Pacific Bowl campaign and bid to earn promotion to the top tier of the Pacific Championships in 2025.
Despite being met head on by the emotion of a Fijian crowd who were witnessing their side in action on home soil for the first time in 24 years, PNG flew out of the sheds to boss the opening exchanges and leave the Bati looking shell-shocked as they trailed 16-0 at the break in Suva.
Cowboys prospect Robert Derby twice picked off wayward passes from Viliame Kikau to register telling blows, with the first ending in him opening the scoring and the second in Nene Macdonald capping off a mammoth game with a try early in the second half.
Macdonald’s night ended with 227 run metres, two line breaks and 10 tackle breaks next to his name.
The result – which was the Kumuls’ second Test victory in row over Fiji – means Jason Demetriou’s men can now secure a place in the final and shot at promotion if they beat Cook Islands in Week 3.
Fiji meanwhile face a must-win game against the Cook Islands in Week 2 if they are any hope of making it through to the promotion-relegation match against the third-ranked Pacific Cup side on November 10, while they’ll need to hope the Aitu can beat PNG in Week 3 and that they end up with the superior for-and-against.
During a frantic start which saw both sides cough up a handful of errors, it was only a brilliant goal-line tackle from Taane Milne that stopped PNG from registering first points inside five minutes.
A booming 40/20 from Kurt Donoghoe a short time later flipped the field after his side had managed to soak up an early onslaught from the Kumuls, but come the 18th minute it was a mistake 80 metres off their own line which saw Fiji fall behind.
A wayward offload from Kikau found Derby, who had enough pace to see off a spirited chase from Kevin Naiqama, while the Bati were fortunate to survive another error minutes later after Maika Sivo hit the ball dead while attempting to defuse a bomb in-goal.
When they did get over the line on 24 minutes Michael Jennings’ would-be try was ruled out when the Bunker obstruction in the lead up, and very next set Papua New Guinea rubbed salt into the wound with their second try, which came after Macdonald smashed through multiple tackle attempts and offloaded to Judah Rimbu.
Sylvester Namo’s run under the posts just before half-time made the gap 16, and while Semi Valemei’s strike back seven minutes into the second period put Fiji in the game, it was promptly cancelled out by Derby’s second intercept of Kikau which Macdonald finished off.
Trailing 22-4 with 18 to play, Fiji needed something miraculous and very nearly got it via a chip and chase from Donoghoe which ended in him grounding the ball on the dead-ball line and the claim being ruled out.
Sivo’s four-pointer with 11 seconds left on the clock did nothing to brighten up a miserable night at the office for the Bati, who are now in must-win territory ahead of facing the Cook Islands in Week 2.
“In the first half we gave away four seven-tackle sets in a row, that made the difference. When you play against a team like Papua New Guinea you can’t afford to do that… they’d already played one game extra to us, nearly 80 percent of their boys played last week (against the Australia PM’s XIII). We need to regroup; we have only got one week [until the next game],” said Fiji Bati coach Wise Kativerata.
“We’ll enjoy this tonight, it’s been a crazy 10 days for our split squad… we didn’t really get together as a team until Wednesday, so what they have done over the last four or five days is pretty special… that was a great start tonight,” said Papua New Guinea coach Jason Demetriou.
