The Blue Heelers Premier Men’s Division are loaded and ready for the NCDRU Grand Finals which will see the Heelers go head-to-head against the Southern Chiefs Premier Men’s team this Saturday, 21st October at the Murray Barracks Oval. Coach Ase Boas said that his side had been working to meet the Chiefs Men as it would be a great challenge, and this would be the second time the Heelers and Chiefs Senior men are meeting at a face-off in the Grand Finals. “We’ve been playing this season well with the Chiefs boys, some of whom have playing experience in CRU, so they have the upper hand for us, we’ll try to give them a good run.” Boas stated that he is happy with the team’s performance during this short season as a majority of the players he has been working with were league players and have managed to understand the code and its rules in the duration of the season. “I’ve been working with league players and I’m happy that they’re picking up as they go as this is another way to help develop a pathway for them in the code.” According to Boas, the Heelers currently have a great backline but are lacking in the forwards department as they lack the weight that a team needs in the front. “We’re going to focus on building our forwards and our backs players as well, so we have weight in the front and a good backline that are capable of running set plays.” The Coach said he wanted his players have improved in their understanding of the game before they went into the details of the game itself and encouraged players to keep doing their best and continue to improve to one day become elite players and represent the country. “It’s not always about winning. It’s about understanding the game, developing yourself and having fun.” “Blue Heelers Rugby Union Club is looking forward to next year’s season and the upcoming pre-season 7s.” He stated they were looking forward to breaking everything down in detail in rugby clinics to teach players little things like the proper procedures in rucks and tackles among other things and explained that Rugby Union 15s was complicated that one would need a lot of departments to get the team functioning. “My focus now is to get some experts in during the pre-season to run clinics for my team.” “We ran the first one in 2021, 2022 and are looking forward to this year’s clinic as well.” Although the NCDRU season was short, Boas and his team always showed for games, as he saw NCDRU as a developing competition that can be used as a pathway to breed great union players. “Our season was short because of politics but I think we should lay aside our politics. If we need to have two comps running, it’s good for the union and giving opportunities for everyone to play and not just players who know the union and giving enough room for players who also want to try out the code.” Meanwhile he encourages everyone to come have a feel of rugby union because Rugby Union was a unique code and PNG did not have a lot of unions. He was happy to see also that a lot of new people are comping into the competition, especially from league, touch rugby and AFL who are joining to have a feel of the game. “We’ve got a lot of skills in union so if you want to test union, feel free to come join and be a part of these two competitions [CRU and NCDRU] going forward into next year."