South Alexishafen, New Guinea, 10 September 1944—an exciting moment during a rugby league match between the 61st Infantry Battalion, ‘The Queensland Cameron Highlanders’, and the 30th Infantry Battalion. Identified personnel are: Private N D Keen NX123694, Private C Halloway NX121857, Private W Delohery NX142221. (Photo courtesy of the Australian War Memorial: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C66024)

Patrick Bourke

It has been said that there are two religions in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Christianity and rugby league. Both have been introduced into PNG and have been taken up enthusiastically. PNG is the only country in the world where rugby league is the major national sport. Rugby league is a part of the national school curriculum. The sport has been used as a means of uniting the nation which has over 800 different languages.

Papua New Guinea first encountered rugby league during the gold rush in the 1930s through Australian miners. Australian soldiers who were stationed in PNG during the Second World War reintroduced the sport back into PNG. The PNG Football (Rugby League) League was founded in 1949. 

The PNG newspaper, the PNG Post-Courier, on Thursday, 27 March 1975, reported on the upcoming rugby league inter-zones games between Southern, Highlands, Northern Coast and the New Guinea Islands which would be held on the following Saturday and Sunday. From these trial games, the first PNG rugby league national team would be selected to play in the first Pacific Cup against teams from Australia and New Zealand during May 1975.

The newspaper reported that the PNG team in the Pacific Cup would be wearing jerseys in the national colours with a bird of paradise emblem and would be known as the Kumuls.

The teams that played in the first Pacific Cup were PNG, Western Australia, Victoria and New Zealand Maoris. The New Zealand Maoris won the first Pacific Cup, defeating PNG by 38 to 13. The games were played at Port Moresby.

PNG has continued to play rugby league in Pacific area competitions. They had a male team and a female team in the Rugby League Pacific Championships, held between 19 October and 10 November 2024. They competed against teams from Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji and the Cook Islands. Two of these games were played at Port Moresby on 3 November when the PNG women played New Zealand and the PNG men played the Cook Islands.

In May 2024, the Chair of the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC), Peter V’landys AM, revealed his ambitious plan to bring three new clubs into the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. A PNG team could be one of these teams.

Since then, the Prime Ministers of PNG and Australia have spoken out strongly for the inclusion of a PNG team in the expanded NRL. The Australian Government has also promised $600 million over ten years as financial support. A top-level NRL club is seen as a diplomatic tool to strengthen relations between Australia and PNG.

The PNG rugby league team, the PNG Hunters, has played in the NRL second-tier Queensland Cup since 2014. They won the Queensland Cup in 2017. The PNG Hunters would be expected to be a talent pool for a PNG NRL team as would be the 12 clubs in the semi-professional Digicel Cup in PNG.

However, PNG will need a thriving schools rugby league program. The young PNG rugby league players need a pathway. As Justin Olam, the only current NRL player who has graduated from the PNG Hunters, has said, PNG needs a thriving schools program and a plan to scout grassroots talent from rural areas before the Digicel Cup is a sustainable source of NRL recruits:

There’s heaps of talent back at home, but for me, the only reason I came and played NRL was because I went to uni.

Editor’s Note: This article was sent to print in the December journal before the October and November matches were played.