PNG ‘REAL MAROONS’ IN SUNDAY CAMPAIGN
WHEN Michael Marum talks about what Sunday’s Intrust Super Championship means to the PNG Hunters, it’s not just another chance to win for their country, but also for their state.
Marum’s team made history over the weekend, when it claimed its first Intrust Super Cup premiership.
Now on Sunday they will represent the entire competition as they come up against the winners of the NSW competition, the Penrith Panthers.
For Marum, this means that for at least one day, the Hunters will be Queenslanders.
“We now represent the country and Queensland,” he said.
“We won’t let our country and our state down in Sydney.
‘‘It’s important to us because now we can prove that our competition is tougher than NSW.”
Given how much Papua New Guineans love rugby league, it is hardly a surprise the Hunters are thriving on the chance to represent the Sunshine State.
Their victory song is the same “aye aye yippee yippee aye” tune made famous by the Maroons on the Origin stage.
After their last-minute 12-10 victory over the Sunshine Coast Falcons at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday, skipper Ase Boas said that the team knew it had to fight until the dying seconds because “that’s what this ground is about”.
It’s clear the Hunters are proud to be in the Queensland competition. In return they hope plenty of Queenslanders rally around them on Sunday.
With their match the curtain-raiser to the NRL grand final, there will no doubt be plenty of Cowboys and Storm fans in the crowd and Channel 9 commentator Scott Sattler said everyone needed to get behind the Hunters.
A former Maroons player himself, Sattler said what the Hunters did against the Falcons was “Origin-like”.
“They stayed in the game based on pure resilience and toughness,” he said