“I think they’ve done pretty well,” he said. “If we had an NRL team this year, then most of those boys are gonna play, I think they can compete with the rest of the NRL teams.
“Most of them don’t have NRL exposure training and defensive systems and attack and all of that. As soon as you get a good coach that can point them in the right direction, they will compete.
“I think they’re gonna be good, but my point of view is different from everyone.
“It’s going to give opportunity to people, but what I’ve always spoken about is [the need for] stability, having a pathway for players instead of hiring them from overseas.”
According to Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index, Port Moresby is the fourth most dangerous city in the world. However, Olam is concerned about how the country is portrayed and believes it is a safe and desirable destination for footballers.
“I think a big thing will be the way the media paints Papua New Guinea,” he said.
PNG has been handed an NRL licence.
“That’s probably how most of the NRL boys will see it, they think of PNG as this and that, but it’s actually not.
“Like every other city in the world, you’ve got some places with criminals, there’s some bad places in parts of the town. A bad part of society is always [everywhere] and I think that’s probably a misunderstanding.
“There are other parts of the world, even there are some parts in Australia, where some people would say ‘Oh, don’t go there.’
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“Most of the crimes in PNG, I can say are tribal related. My province is peaceful, we don’t fight. There are some problems as well, but the PNG media love to put a bad story out there, so those people need to pull their socks up as well.
“They need to [promote] PNG the way it’s supposed to be. There’s beautiful places around where people can go and visit, it’s great for kids, for people to bring their family up there.”
Asked what would constitute success for the new franchise, the premiership-winning former Storm star said: “Off the field will be really good for the league and for NRL as well because of the audience.
“They’re going to get the crowd to the game, it’s going to be consistently high.
“The success will be to give opportunities to young boys. If I see modern tech and the PNG boys are competing at a high level, I will call that a success.
“Winning the premiership is obviously the goal when you play, but to give opportunities to young kids back at home, some of them don’t have any education, that to me is a success to the country and the club.”
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