Pacific Games touch footy reigning champions, Team PNG men’s side, are patiently awaiting approval and endorsement from the authorities for final preparations.
The back-to-back games gold medalist are almost done with their squad finalisations while head coach Paul Kasisie has submitted his best 14 to represent the country in the event that would be hosted in the Solomon Islands.
Kasisie is adamant that his best pick would make the country proud and retain the title they have held since 2015 edition of the games in Port Moresby.
He added that the list of the final squad has been submitted to the PNG Touch Federation boards headed by president Kevin Luana before they sit together with the PNG Olympic Committee for the ratifications.
“Yeah, we will finalise the squad and it go through our president and then to the PNGOC,” he said yesterday.
“We have done our part, now awaiting president and PNGOC to endorsed the names before the list goes out to the media.
“I have 20 now and from that, we will only select 14-to make the final squad to represent the country.”
Kasisie said that last week’s training hit out with the Australian Defence Force Touch Footy team was to see where their strengths and weaknesses are before moving into making final calls.
“It was a good experience, since we put together a team around last November,” he said.
“It was the first time we had a match like this of a high-level contest and to see where our match fitness level was at.
“It was good, we really needed that and they gave us a high level of match fitness and we learned some new things that we could work on and how we could improve on moving toward the Pacific Games.”
