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How to tune into Sport NationPNG announces NRL team name
Nicholas Quinlan • October 12th, 2025 6:15 pm
Papua New Guinea have officially confirmed their team’s name for their arrival in the NRL in 2028.
After having a competition to help name the side back in August, it has been decided that the side will be known as the PNG Chiefs.
Explaining the decision behind why the Chiefs moniker was chosen, PNG Prime Minister James Marape, who announced the name at PM’s XIII match in Port Moresby, said that the name reflected the country’s history.
“Everyone felt that Chiefs was more appropriate on the basis that we are a sovereign nation of many tribes; over 850 languages and 1000 tribes. Before there was a Prime Minister, and a King or Queen in England, the sovereign head within the tribe was the Chief,” Prime Minister Marape said.
“In our country, about 30 per cent are matrilineal, so it fits in well when girls run on as Chiefs because there is a traditional context in our history.
“In East New Britain, Milne Bay, Bougainville and New Ireland, women are also chiefs. They hold land rights, they make the final decisions.
“The name just blends in well with the authenticity of where we came from as a nation of so many tribes, united into one nation in 1975 and gifted by Australia. It has a strong meaning to our authentic identity.”
