Nope, he's in the QLD set up now, so he's back to being an Aussie....

Great effort from the Cook Islands. To get within 20 is a an excellent performance, especially without their non-available players.

A World Cup with eligible players actually representing the "best" countries for the game would be something to see. Won't happen in the foreseeable.

Tonga and Samoa are very close to the top 3 (when given access to players) so the gaps in the rugby league world are shrinking all the time.

I agree with you on this one, 2017 should be possibly the most closely fought world cup ever. Samoa arguably should have won at least one game in the four nations, maybe even got to the final and Tonga aren't that far off them. We need a couple more teams to reach finals I think, opens the whole international scene up, makes it less predictable and thus more interesting.

The Pacific qualifiers are;
NZ
Aus
Samoa
Fiji
Png
Tonga

I think every one of them except NZ ad Aus have taken big steps forward, and will put in a much more serious effort in 2017.

Agree with that, and I think because the tournament is in Aus and there is less need to be away from family etc for over a month, more 'heritage' players will make themselves available for the pacific nations - that could spell disaster for the Northern Hemisphere teams, including England.