Junior Paulo ended up even.
There was the knitted hat he was proudly wearing after the game, and the bilum around his neck. “But I don’t have any shorts on and I don’t have a jersey,” the 32-year-old grinned after Samoa’s 64-6 win over Papua New Guinea at a cacophonous Santos National Football Stadium on Saturday.
Jermain McEwen took off - and signed - his boots before giving them to a cherubic pair of ball kids. Stephen Crichton was down to his undies, signing warm-up tops and singlets.
The plan was for the players to acknowledge the fans at fulltime but not get too close for fear of over-enthusiasm becoming a security risk. That didn’t last. Spencer Leniu removed his socks for a fan who was embracing him through the fence and later climbed into the stands to pose for an entire rugby league team.
Welcome to Port Moresby - home of the NRL’s newest team - three days after the launch of their jersey and logo.
On Wednesday a manager at Samoa’s hotel - the same one that hosted the PNG Chiefs’ breakfast function - could be heard telling his star-struck staff: “They’ll be here all week - you’ll have plenty of time to look at them”.
When teams come here, whether it’s for Test matches or NRL down the track, there’s going to be this emphatic crowd that’s going for the home team. You’ve just got to embrace it, really.
Samoa coach Ben Gardiner
Your correspondent first came to PNG with the Australian team that toured Kokopo, Goroka, Mt Hagan, Lae and Moresby in 1991; a venture that was not only pioneering in a rugby league sense but often felt like we were doing something that not many Australians ever experience.
It was never repeated and never will be.
Police wanted to shoot the locks off a gate when the key was lost after one game. Tear gas wafted over the ground during another. Rocks came over the fence when the sold out sign went up at another.
The Siva Tau sounds out at Santos!
The local papers ran my AAP match previews right next to the match reports the day after the games and one paper had simply photocopied Rugby League Week and republished a centre spread.
Fans would sit outside the hotels shouting players’ names all night: “Skintight - Illawarra flash!” for Rod Wishart, with a special fascination for the biggest player, Martin Bella, and the smallest, Geoff Toovey.
We attended tribal meetings in the Highlands, and there were gifts thrown successfully through half-open windows of speeding minibuses.
From the field: Jarome Luai
I returned in 2001 with Chris Anderson’s Kangaroos - watching the Aussies’ 54-10 win from the reserves bench - and hadn’t been back since.
Bear in mind that in 1991 the Brisbane Broncos, Newcastle Knights and Gold Coast Giants were only three years old. As I was reading my story out each night to a copytaker in Sydney (‘that’s K-U-M-U-L’’, full stop’), no one could have conceived of Papua New Guinea having a team in the Australian competition.
Much has changed. There is construction all over Port Moresby, modern hotels and offices, and Lloyd Robson Oval is now the Santos National Football Stadium.
Not far from where I once sat on the bench for Australia - be thankful coach Anderson didn’t need me that day - I watched the crowd cheer on Saturday the way you might greet your team winning a premiership as Samoa received the ball back from the kick-off, Gairo Voro picked up and was driven back 10 metres by three Samoans and Morea Morea caught the ball on the full.
“It’s one of those things you can’t describe because you’ve just got to be here to witness it,” Paulo said.
“The scenes on the way here, just outside of the stadium … seeing the kids, the smiles on their faces, you just can’t get that anywhere else besides here because you just see how much it means to them.”
They don’t sing and chant like English crowds, but they don’t just cheer tries and big hits like Australasian audiences either.
Instead, there is an aural representation of absolutely everything that happens on the field - captain’s challenges, players tripping over, good tackles, bad tackles, scrum wins. You could sit at the NFS in a blindfold and have a pretty good idea of what’s going on.
Kumul legend Rhyse Martin chaired off after final game in PNG
In two years, this will happen every second week. And those who’ve not experienced it will be shocked.
“In terms of being a team that’s an away team, it’s going to be a challenge to come and play here” said Gardiner.
“We actually talked at halftime in terms of ‘there’s no silencing this crowd, they’re here to enjoy the footy’ and we had to talk internally to make sure our communication was right in bringing the game back to our terms instead of being influenced by the crowd.
The Kumuls are not taking a backward step
“When teams come here, whether it’s for Test matches or NRL down the track, there’s going to be this emphatic crowd that’s going for the home team. You’ve just got to embrace it, really.”
PNG Chiefs manager of football, Michael Chammas, missed Wednesday’s launch with a stomach bug but was out on the field at fulltime on Saturday. He says fans here - like in Brisbane, Canberra, Townsville, Wollongong and everywhere else that got their own teams - will support the opposition at first.
For visiting fans, the unbridled adulation for the game here will warm their hearts and even recharge their own passion. The barefoot kids wearing NRL merch, chasing buses carrying players - or even match officials - is hard to forget.
There has been much talk in PNG of the Kokoda Track.
RLPA chief Clint Newton was at the World Cup game, having just walked it with a group of Pasifika players such as Alex Glenn and Ben Murdoch-Masilla, conducting coaching clinics along the way.
At Wednesday’s jersey launch, PNG Chiefs chair Catherine Harris spoke of her father being rescued and carried to safety when wounded on The Track in World War II.
Afterwards, PNG prime minister James Marape addressed the pachyderm in the ballroom directly: “To every Australian taxpayer, I want to say one thing: the effort of your government is not in vain.
“As in 1945, we will always be there for you. This is a place of investment, of relationships, of co-existence; as it was in the past. Our children must co-exist and in sports they find that unity. Your investment will be returned in many, many ways.”
Just like Junior Paulo’s investment of his shorts and jersey.
