{"id":19443,"date":"2023-11-29T03:47:22","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T16:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/?p=19443"},"modified":"2023-11-29T03:47:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T16:47:23","slug":"touch-rugby-defending-champions-png-face-tougher-competition-on-day-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/touch-rugby-defending-champions-png-face-tougher-competition-on-day-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Touch rugby defending champions PNG face tougher competition on day two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
PNG captain Angelena Watego. Photos: Charlie Ando Bitikolo, Pacific Games News Service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

PNG, defending champions in both men\u2019s and women\u2019s touch rugby, faced some tougher tests on day two of the competition on Tuesday at DC Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PNG men faced stiff resistance from Samoa and settled for a 2-2 draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the women\u2019s division, PNG could not find an advantage as they drew 4-4 with Fiji.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PNG women\u2019s captain Angelena Watego told the Pacific Games News Service: \u201cIt was a tough game where Fiji came out strong, leading in the first half; hence, we put a late comeback for a draw.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the PNG men\u2019s touch rugby team got comfortable wins in their other match on Tuesday, beating Niue 5-1, while the women edged past Samoa 3-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday\u2019s first match saw Solomon Islands men being taken down by a strong Fiji side 12-5. The hosts\u2019 hopes of entering the qualifying rounds for the finals was again denied by a newcomer to the sport, Norfolk Island, who won 7-6 in the afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last match of the day saw the Fiji men\u2019s team beat Niue 8-5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiji team captain Johanson Keith Nauluvula said Niue gave them a tough run, but they managed to cross the try line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also shared the challenges facing his team in the afternoon events, such as the heat, but said now that they are getting used to it, they can focus on their next game with Cook Islands on Wednesday, which he described as going to be hard for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cook Islands proved to be a tough contender in the men\u2019s event as they beat Kiribati 9-2 and drew with Norfolk Island 4-4 in the play-offs today to complete the round robin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cook Islands team captain Maka Maui said their big challenge for Wednesday would be the impressive Fijians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe just have to prepare ourselves for that game and give all we can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Touch rugby continues on Wednesday with qualifying and medal matches for the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tournaments, before the mixed tournament begins on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Tali Dever, Arnold Peter, and Ambrose Toremana, Pacific Games News Service<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PNG, defending champions in both men\u2019s and women\u2019s touch rugby, faced some tougher tests on day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":19444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,26,18],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":108,"label":"Touch Rugby"},{"value":26,"label":"All"},{"value":18,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/005A1584-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Joanna Lester","author_link":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/author\/jlester\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":108,"name":"Touch Rugby","slug":"touch-rugby","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":108,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":7,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":108,"category_count":7,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Touch Rugby","category_nicename":"touch-rugby","category_parent":0},{"term_id":26,"name":"All","slug":"all","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":26,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":478,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":26,"category_count":478,"category_description":"","cat_name":"All","category_nicename":"all","category_parent":0},{"term_id":18,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":18,"taxonomy":"category","description":"news","parent":0,"count":464,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":18,"category_count":464,"category_description":"news","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19446,"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19443\/revisions\/19446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sol2023.com.sb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}