The Australian Prime Minister’s XIII were 58-0 winners over Papua New Guinea at the National Football Stadium, Port Moresby on Saturday.
St George Illawarra Dragons fullback Josh Dugan was the first to open his team’s scoring account in the fourth minute.
Blake Ferguson followed four minutes later, strolling over the line to record his first of two tries.
Chants of ‘Inglis’ and ‘Radradra’ have followed the Australian team since arriving in PNG and the crowd of 15,011 leapt to their feet when Radradra was on the end of an Inglis pass to score in the corner in the 17th minute.
The biggest cheer of the first half, however, was reserved for the captain, Greg Inglis, who crossed the line with 30 seconds remaining.
If there was a roof on the National Football Stadium, it would have been blown off after Inglis promptly followed the try with his trademark ‘goanna’ celebration.
With every replay, the crowd erupted into louder jubilation. Inglis revealed after the match that the local NRL PNG team had received hundreds of emails in the week leading up to the game, enquiring whether he would be celebrating with the ‘goanna’ if he scored a try.
It was a scrappy 10 minutes by both sides to open the second half, before the Australian PM’s captain picked up where he left off, crossing to complete a double in the 53rd minute, this time delighting the crowd with a somersault to plant the ball down.
Dugan crossed for his second try of the afternoon soon after and the score moved to 32-0 at the hour mark.
PNG never gave up throughout the match, with the crowd urging their national team on and the Australians were certainly on the end of some bone-crunching tackles.
Dragons second-rower Tyson Frizell was able to score a try before a hat-trick to Mitchell Moses rounded out the Aussies afternoon, with Moses on kicking duty in the first half and Moylan completing the role in the second.
“We didn’t have a bad player today. They all played extremely well, with the right attitude and the right commitment,” said Australia Head Coach Mal Meninga.
“I thought it was a really good team effort and that’s what we expect of an Australian side. It’s a team effort and individuals get the reward out of that by being successful.”
