‘David taking on Goliath’

The Cook Islands rugby sevens squad held their final pre Wellington Sevens tournament training run and game against the New Zealand squad yesterday.

NZ media have described the Cooks as ‘David taking on Goliath’ at this year’s IRB sevens tournament in Wellington.

Despite a tricky draw the Cook Islands are backing themselves to cause a stir at the tournament which starts on Friday (Thursday CI time).

The Cooks are up against series leaders England, World Cup champions Wales and the United States in pool play.

Nathan Robinson has been with the team since 2005 and says they’re more than capable of upsetting their more highly-fancied opponents.

“Doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from,” Robinson told Radio New Zealand.

“We’re here, obviously first thing is to take the tournament out. We think on a personal level, the calibre of players we have, we can make top eight and obviously game by game is a bad motto but obviously it’s what we’ll do and then we’ll go from there.”

The Cook Islands will meet Wales first up on day one of games.