Excited: Stan Wright

The Pacific region plays host to the first leg of another World Cup play-off game next Saturday when the Cook Islands face Hong Kong and, rather like the saga involving Germany, the Cook Islands accept they are fortunate still to be involved.
The islanders’ participation seemed to have ended last August when they unexpectedly lost 13-9 to Tahiti, but afterwards there were murmurings as to the eligibility of two of the Tahiti players – Guillaume Brouqi and Andoni Jiminez – and World Rugby investigated further. It was a complicated case – aren&r...