More Than Words

 Need I say more?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A friend of mine goes for the blues but he had the good sense of humour to pass me these images. 

_::sja::

 

The Return of Lockyer

Like most Papua New Guineans, I avidly follow Rugby League both here and overseas, especially the NRL. As a result, Friday evenings usually find me glued in front of the TV for the Friday night NRL games.
Last Friday night’s clash between the Parramatta Eels and the Brisbane Broncos was something spectacular. It was nothing short of a thriller and in my book; it rates with some of the best interstate games.

Earlier during the week, Fatty and the boys from the Footy Show panel had all leaned in favour of the Broncos to win easily given the Eels somewhat lackluster performance in their recent matches as well as the scheduled return of my main man Lockyer after recuperating from a knee injury.

From the first whistle blow, the game was anything but what the punters predicted. It had more than its fare share of blood, guts and glory, stars and villains. Both teams were going neck to neck all the way to the final hooter of the siren.

As the game was approaching fulltime, Krisnan Inu touched down at the 75th minute  for his second brilliant try to level the scores at 26 all. This brought the house down and Phil Gould, the co-commentator that night just screamed out “The gods of Rugby are surely smiling down at the Eels tonight”.  

The 5 minutes that followed had everybody on the very edge of their seats. Everyone was bracing themselves as to who would be the one to steal the cliffhanger with a drop goal. Brisbane’s attempts for a try were foiled twice within that time. So was Brett Finch’s attempt for a field goal.

Just as the final siren went off, the ball came into the possession of Lockyer – but rather awkwardly I should point out, eliminating any possibility of him getting off that one pointer that we were all expecting, leaving everybody to think the game would be carried into extra time for golden point.

But Lockyer simply jogged up and placed a neat chip over the heads of the Eels towards the left flank to land in the arms of Denan Kemp. The crowd, the commentators, the officials, everybody just lost it and the stadium exploded as the speedster Kemp crashed into Tryland for his fourth of the night.

That was the instant I passed out. The last words echoing in my ear as liquid blackness enveloped me were these ecstatic words from the commentators’ box:

“No, no, no. Lockyer, in fact you might be the football God”.

_::sja::

 

• Read more here: Brisbane Broncos 30 d. Parramatta Eels

 

Ryan Pini - Trupla Man

Last night I came home late and turned on the TV and managed to catch “Nexus“, a show aired on the Australian Network. It is mainly taylored for viewers who have English as their second or third Language.

There was a story about Ryan Pini on. I am very proud of this young Papua New Guinean and of his achievements. I was so impressed by what he had to say about swimming, his achievements and Papua New Guinea, I noted down a reminder to obtain a transcript of his interview. The link to the original site is http://australianetwork.com/nexus/stories/s2049134.htm .

The Transcript of Ryan Pini’s Interview on Nexus (Australian Network)

 RYAN PINI: I was born in Papua New Guinea in ‘81 and I lived there most of my life. I moved down into Australia to better my training and I’ve been here for seven years so far. This is my parents’ place that I’m staying at at Kangaroo Point here. And it’s very convenient to me. The pool’s only about 10 minutes away.

My height - I’m six foot four, six foot five - in between there. My foot size is a 14, so it helps in the water. Same with my hands. I’ve got big hands. It all comes into account. The…even your wingspan. I think the Australians did a study on wingspan compared to the height and if you’ve got longer arms, the better chances of you becoming a good swimmer. So I think my wingspan is about 15 centimetres longer than my body. There’s so many reasons why swimming in Australia is a lot better. There’s, obviously, a pool that’s open. They’ve…from what I understand is they’ve closed the 50-metre pool in Port Moresby. So they’re training in a 25-metre pool at a school which is…it’s just hard. It’s too hard to try and… ‘Cause you’ve got, you know, other school members that want to swim as well and to be able to maintain that and keep swimmers in the water is very difficult.

I train with Andrew Mewing who’s actually on the… ..he’s been on the Australian team for the 200 freestyle and so there’s him and I that train very closely together. And we’re very competitive and that’s…it keeps you… ..it’s an incentive to keep training harder and try to beat them by, you know, 0.1 of a second if you can. And it just… it improves your swimming and readies you for racing. ‘Cause in Papua New Guinea, when I go back up there for holidays, I’m training by myself, basically, and it’s very hard to keep motivated.

Well, I do nine sessions of swimming a week and they range from an hour and a half to two hours, so that’s fairly intensive and it takes a lot out of you. I’ve got two gym programs a week and I have pilates. Then I’ve got one or two massage and physiotherapy things I go to as well. Usually by the end of the week I’m pretty worn out and just wanting to spend Saturday just… ..Saturday and Sunday afternoon just completely doing nothing, just relaxing.

‘99, the SP Games back then, that was the first gold medal I won for an international competition. And winning that was, you know, a huge experience back then when I was in high school. Ever since then, you know, you go away to overseas competitions. You may not be winning gold medals, but you’re sort of improving your times to standards which you never thought you’d get to. And being able to do that gives you a sense of pride and wanting to better yourself. Every year after that, I was bettering myself by a good second, I know, in the 100 fly, just dropping my time down. And then, I don’t know, it was sort of just a goal of mine to be able to sort of make it maybe into the top 15 Australian, top 10. And then, you know, coming into the top 10 in the world, I was just, like, “OK,” you know. It’s just a… You sort of don’t expect to be able to get there, but you just keep pushing yourself to make sure you can. And, yeah, it’s just an overwhelming feeling to be in the top 10 in the world for something that I love to do and, you know, I couldn’t change that.

I just love swimming, either way. Commonwealth Games last year, 2006, it was just amazing to win gold for Papua New Guinea. That was one of my biggest achievements. It was a lot bigger than what I, sort of, even thought. At that time when I won the gold medal it was just, um, you know… Hearing the national anthem was pretty incredible, but arriving back home into Port Moresby, seeing thousands of people there welcoming the team back, it was a huge emotional feeling and it was very, very honourable. It’s given people in Papua New Guinea someone to look up to. Hopefully, that I can, you know, give someone that incentive to keep training or maybe the government… you know, they have put a bit more funding into swimming and the rest of the sports, which is really good. I guess, you know, it’s an achievement in itself to be able to give that to Papua New Guinea and hopefully better the sports in Papua New Guinea, get better facilities and things like that.

Check out Ryan Pini on Wikipedia.

_::sja::

STORMS: Super Team 2007

 

_{image courtesy of ABC online (01/10/07)}

Whoo hoo.

After a disappointing conclusion to last year’s battle, they returned this year with all barrels blazing to take out the NRL premiership for 2007. Its two times for them now within their decade of being in the NRL competition.

The Sea Eagles unfortunately did not get to study their weather charts well and lost their way into the eye of the perfect Storm. The Storms spared them mercy and knocked the wind out of them with a blizzard of tries.

But from the outset, it did not seem as if the Sea Eagles lost their way at all. It was more of a case where their efforts to counter the attacks of the Storms simply fell short of its intended mark. The same could be said of Cameron Smith’s conversion kicks. (I bet people would start blaming sorcery and sanguma if it was a local match hehehe) .

I savored the moment, being a die hard Melbourne Storm fan but I have to admit(guiltily) that I would have preferred a cliff-hanger battle than a one sided affair. The victory would have been sweeter.

But still, it feels good to be on the winning side.

You watched History in the making:
Did you know, that by winning the Grand Final, the Storms 24 wins in one season sees them as the only team to pull something like this off in 100 years of Rugby League history….

Ooooohhhh yeah!

::sja::

:: AN ADDENDUM::

Something worth mentioning that sent me reeling

During the presentation did any of you notice when Ben Cross (or was is Brent White?) who reached over to have a peck on John Howard’s cheek? Mr. Howard had to recoil… haha… it was hillarious

 

Where I’d Rather Be (??) but then….

The sights
The sounds
The colours
The music
The crowd
The cheering
The mexican waves
The chants

The atmosphere
The electricity
The excitement
The passion
Brute strength
Killer ball skills

The Game
The Game of Gentlemen

Then there’s the Eiffel Tower in the backdrop. Tell you where I’d rather be right now.

……. And there was a Compo Claim, A bride Price and a Pig Killing … tsk tsk

So its good ol Boroko Market who sees me off to the game on the box with a loose cigarette and a dose of beteljuice ….

Aaahhh ….. the little pleasures of life

Seize the day, son!

::sja::

Finals Footy is Here

Yippeeeee!!!! Its finals footy all around.

On the local scene, the Mendi Muruks successfully fought their way through to the grand finals to defend their title in the SP Cup comp this Sunday. Should be a good game between the Muruks and the Gurias. I suspect, the Muruks will retain the cup.

Now, for some inside scoop:

• Darren Lockyer is coming to town for the SP Cup Awards.

• Nickson Kolo from the WV Raiders is a contender for Rookie of the year award. I think he’ll win it, given his performance throughout the competition.

Embarrasing Discovery of the week.
If you go to the Lae Bombers website, you will notice they have the Webb Ellis Trophy on their homepage. For those who came late, the Webb Ellis Cup is the Rugby World Cup trophy. How embarrassing is that??
Don’t they have any image of the SP trophy? Is it because the Bombers have never won the SP Cup (ever?), that they cannot get a real pic of the SP Cup trophy.

***

Now to Ostralia, we have the NRL finals coming up this weekend. These are the teams I’m tipping

• Fri: Warriors vs Eels :- Warriors to WIN
• Sat: Cowboys vs Bulldogs : - Cowboys to WIN
• Sat: Sea Eagles vs Rabbitohs :- Rabbitohs to WIN
• Sun: Storms vs Broncos :- Storms to WIN

Now, dont ask me how I know these guys are going to win. Just bet on em and you’ll win. I have a secret but if I tell you I’ll have to kill you

Enough NRL already!

Now, for the moment that we have all been waiting for. The whole world has been waiting for this. For 4 solid years. (Caint believe its been that long). Its finally here.
Argentina meets France this Saturday morning. Kicking off the Rugby world cup this weekend live on EMTV (since I do not have cable ). But the game to watch is later in the evening when the All Blacks meet the Italians.

While on the subject of Rugby and the All Blacks, try check out this blog.
The Rugby Roundtable
- A Close Shave <-One of his posts
This dude is funny - and quite witty - especially at the way he disses Aussies and refers to them as Crims . Man its pure hillarious read.

Havta call it a night now.
So long folks. Stay tuned and keep watching this channel.

::.sja.::