The Tries That Bind Us: Australia and Papua New Guinea as Rugby League Neighbours

project outline

This project will explore how and why rugby league became the national sport of Papua New Guinea (PNG), Australia’snearest neighbour, and the role of Australians in this process.

On the eve of PNG’s much anticipated entry into the NRL it will ask – what does PNG’s relationship with rugby league meanfor its complex national identity, and for its evolving relationship with Australia?

As Australia’s only former colony celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence and prepares for NRL entry – adevelopment that is expected to transform relations between the countries – a study of how we got here is both timely and overdue.

Through interviews with Papua New Guineans and Australians and archival research, this project will chart the untold story ofhow rugby league became not only PNG’s national sport, but a major prism of its self-expression.

From its introduction by Australians on the 1930s goldfields, to the little-known ‘State of Origin’ match between Australian troops in PNG in 1945, to the emergence of internationally celebrated Papua New Guinean players and achieving the long-held goal of an NRL franchise, this work will explore how rugby league and PNG’s sense of identity are intertwined, and whatthis means for the future.

Joanna Lester is a journalist and documentarian who has written extensively on rugby league in Papua New Guinea and is the producer and director of the Power Meri documentary on the national PNG women’s team. This film is available on YouTube.