It’s a hazy, sticky afternoon in downtown Port Moresby as a group of teenage boys play rugby league on a field with no grass.
A small crowd jeers, mothers sell single cigarettes and lollies under shade, as cars race past on roads stained red with the remnants of betel nut.
Two boys gang tackle another to the ground and a plume of dust whips up from the surface.
As our camera flashes, young boys watching on the sidelines call out in Tok Pisin: “Waitman”, and ask for their photo to be taken.
After the game the players from the Mono Muturus Brothers scrub their jerseys in a bucket and hang them out in the sun to dry.
This is the real Papua New Guinea away from the five-star resorts filled with diplomats, military personnel and workers from the lucrative mining industry.
And to think that this oval in the capital city, lined with discarded bottle tops and crushed soft drink cans, is just the tip of the iceberg in a country of mountains and islands that boasts 800 languages.
Rugby league is often described as a religion in PNG but if the last seven days is anything to go by, the locals must have felt as if the Pope and the Dalai Lama had rolled into town.
Last Friday, the inaugural head coach of the club’s NRL franchise the PNG Chiefs, Willie Peters touched down in Port Moresby for the first time.
“To be able to unite a country in the most positive way through rugby league, which I know people in PNG love, will be an obsession of mine,” said Peters.
“It will be an obsession of mine to make the country proud.”
A few days after Peters landed on PNG soil for the first time, the Chiefs unveiled their jersey and badge to the world ahead of their maiden NRL season in 2028.
With Bank of South Pacific, Coca Cola and Toyota as official sponsors, the Chiefs jersey is believed to be the richest in NRL history.
“We've not kicked a ball yet, but we've got the revenues coming in,” said Chiefs chief executive Lorna McPherson.
“The fact local businesses and some really strong brands in Papua New Guinea are wanting to back us is exciting.”
After months of teasing and a court battle with Super Rugby’s Waikato-based Chiefs, PNG unveiled a white home jersey with a striking design put together by artist Tabu Pelei Warupi.
“To every child in Papua New Guinea, this is your moment,” said the country’s prime minister James Marape.
“Where you start in life does not matter as much as how you finish the race.
“Find a sport, find a passion, find a purpose in life, and contribute to uniting this beautiful diversity of more than 800 languages that we call Papua New Guinea.”
Shortly after the Chiefs' jersey unveiling, where the likes of Foreign Minister Penny Wong and ARL commissioner Peter Beattie were present, Jarome Luai arrived in Port Moresby.
Saturday’s Rugby League World Cup match between Samoa and PNG will be Luai’s first game in the country since he signed with the Chiefs in April as their first official recruit.
Luai’s decision to sign with the Chiefs dominated the NRL discourse, with Wests Tigers’ season imploding after the 29-year-old penned a deal to move to PNG.
But his signature proved that despite concerns over safety, the Chiefs will be a genuine threat to established NRL clubs.
As part of the Albanese government’s $600 million Pacific sports diplomacy strategy, Chiefs players will not pay any tax on their salaries.
“Without Australia’s contribution, we would not have come this far,” Marape said.
“Your investment is not in vain. It will be returned many times over through stronger relationships between our governments, businesses and, most importantly, our people.”
Players will also be able to benefit from lucrative third-party agreements with sponsors where NRL players are afforded deity-like status, perhaps only seen among cricketers in India.
Luai wore a Pepsi cap on arrival at Jackson International airport and advertisements including his face are plastered across billboards and newspaper pages.
Rival NRL clubs have bitten their tongue about the inequity and there is likely to be more dissatisfaction as November 1 nears.
The scary thing for most NRL fans is that the Chiefs, whose other significant signings include Brian To’o, Zac Lomax and Joey Manu, haven’t even waded into the free agency market where they will be able to blow other clubs out of the water with tax-free offers.
Their next likely signing Cooper Bai landed in Port Moresby this week, with the Gold Coast Titans offering the forward permission to talk to the Chiefs.
Bai would have been playing for PNG in Saturday’s World Cup game were it not for a hamstring injury.
The Kumuls are ranked as major outsiders against a Samoan side stacked with NRL talent.
But in sapping conditions in the mid afternoon heat, his father Marcus Bai believes PNG can cap a landmark week for the country with one of its biggest scalps in years.
“Samoa, you cannot doubt what they have in their team but this is a big game for the country," former Melbourne Storm legend Bai explained.
Just like those kids playing on that oval shorn of a single blade of grass, the PNG great expects the Kumuls to take on Samoa the only way they know how.
"Go hard," Bai said.
