Dear Editor, hats off to the brave men who soldiered on for our little nation.

Good to see these players front up and represent the Cook Islands, win or lose they made us proud.

Wish more of the Cookie NRL top players can do the same instead of playing for NZ or State of Origin teams.

Utarenga Tinokura

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It was a good game for both teams, even though Samoa got a high score, good on them, and it was also a good game for the Cookies, to test themselves, and they did well, good luck to both teams. - Rouru Taramai

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My hat is off to the brave men who soldiered on for our little nation, unlike Samoa who train, eat, sleep, breath with their team everyday day in their own country, our boys are scattered, playing hard, working hard in other countries to make something of themselves and probably only had a short time to trial, and try and gel for this game. So Samoa should do well. Matter of fact I expected them to thrash the Cooks.

Moral of the story in the most obvious view is that Samoa was better developed in their own country, hence why the score showed that way. A lesson learnt for the Cooks because that score says a lot about CI league development in general, and has nothing to do with the class and skill.

We all know the talent and calibre our Cookies boys have.

Moe Rata