The Papua New Guinea (PNG) Pepes under 21 squad completed a piece of their training at the Sir John Guise Indoor Stadium on Saturday, February 10th, 2024. The training was a continuation from last year, March, 2023.
Head Coach, Oti Lasagavibau, said the training had been going well and they have about six more weeks to go before departing Moresby for a training camp in Brisbane.
“We are training for a camp and competition in Brisbane for the exposure and experience for the girls,” said Head Coach Oti Lasagavibau,.
“That is also part of the plan for our campaign for the Oceania Qualifiers, which is going to be held this year (2024) in the Cook Islands in September,” said Lasagavibau.
She also mentioned that the girls had returned from the holidays and are taking one step at a time to get them back into the system.
Only six players attended the training while a few didn't show up. One of the player is a student and has left for school at the Divine Word University (DWU).
She further mentioned that it would be better to have many girls on the squad so that they could identify the best 15 players. The players were selected to the team but didn't stay for long and left for personal reasons.
“It’s always good to start off with 25 to 30 players,” she said.
For the Brisbane camp, the team had some players in Brisbane who were going to join them for the training and competition.
“We got about 21 girls so we can make two teams and play against those Brisbane based teams,” Lasagavibau said.
Three groups in Brisbane have been identified to play against the Pepes U21.
“It's a competition where we want to see our girls go out and perform at that level.
When we take the teams out, we get them exposed to the type of competition we are going to attend. If it's going to be a stronger team we're going to play against, we have to face a strong team in Brisbane,” she added.
Meanwhile, apart from the Brisbane camp, the Pepes U21 have a few other training camps and skills training coming up.
They also have a team coming over from Australia to play against the Pepes in Port Moresby and are looking forward to the challenge.
“We have all plans set for the year so we have a busy year,” concluded Lasagavibau.
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