Papua New Guinea coach Stanley Gene says he's proud of his team's effort in the Four Nations rugby league tournament, which came to an end on Saturday with a 36-10 loss to England in Auckland.
Featuring just a handful of full-time professionals, and thirteen players from PNG's local competition, the Kumuls lost all three matches, scoring just 22 points while conceding 154.
Stanley Gene says it was always going to be difficult coming up against the world's best but says his players showed that with more exposure at the top level they can become a .
"The boys who are here now, who are going to get back home to PNG, they've learnt massive and of all the three games that we've played there's a lot of positives to take out and the only way for us to build from that. The boys who are actually going and playing back in England and Australia - they've already got a really good surrouding where they get good coaching. So I would like to appeal to any clubs out there that want any of our boys it'd be great to get more of our boys to play abroad and that's the only way better for the future of the Papua New Guinea rugby football league."
Stanley Gene says he's learnt a lot also in his first full-time coaching job and says he's committed to helping the Kumuls prepare for the next rugby league world cup.
