Pacific Heartbeat

Power Meri

By Joanna Lester

POWER MERI follows Papua New Guinea’s first national women’s rugby league team, the PNG Orchids, on their journey to the 2017 World Cup in Australia. These trailblazers must beat not only the sporting competition, but also intense sexism, a lack of funding, and national prejudice to reach their biggest stage yet.

Proud, strong and hopeful, these women have overcome more challenges than most to take the field in their much-loved national sport. But after years playing at grassroots level with no coaches, funding or support, they have just three months to transform themselves into a competitive national team to take up an invitation to compete on the world stage.