Rugby League World Cup: Wales seek winning recipe for Cook Islands opener

Wales enter the Rugby League World Cup short on top-tier players, but full of ambition and hwyl - a particular Welsh essence of spirit that will only be translated fully for tournament audiences when John Kear's side take the field.

They begin their Group D campaign on Wednesday night in Leigh against Cook Islands, seeking to end a winless run at the World Cup that stretches back to Wales' heady days of the 2000 tournament when they reached the semi-finals.

The teams have met twice before, both times at the World Cup, with Wales winning their first encounter 38-6 in 2000, before Cook Islands gained revenge in 2013 with a 28-24 victory in Neath - to date the Kukis' only World Cup success.

The opener against Cook Islands realistically represents Wales' best chance of that elusive win, with games to follow against a Tonga side that reached the semi-finals in 2017 and since then have beaten both world champions Australia and a combined Great Britain side, then Papua New Guinea who can also call on a wealth of NRL and Super league talent.

Wales are without their two brightest rising stars from the 2017 tournament: St Helens wing Regan Grace is injured and is on his way to rugby union, while loose forward club-mate Morgan Knowles has switched allegiance to England.

Regan Grace was one of Wales' brightest sparks in 2017 but they must now do without the winger

"You've just got to accept that, that's where we're at. Morgan qualifies for both Wales through his heritage and England through his birth and he threw his lot in with England. They're tier one and you've just got to understand that, and obviously we are a little depleted with Regan (Grace) missing," Kear said.

"I'm really proud that 12 of the 24-man squad have been born in Wales - you wouldn't get that in many other of the tier two nations, believe me.

"Others like Luis Roberts have come through our under-16s, under-19s pathway, so we've got lots going on in the background that we can be proud of, but all people will see is Wales versus Cook Islands on Wednesday night, and then Wales v Tonga the following Monday and Wales-Papua New Guinea the Monday after.

"They'll just look at that and not take into account what's going on in the background. We know in the background things are good, but we also know we need to give a good account of ourselves on those three days."

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Kear is also without Catalans Dragons prop forward Gil Dudson through suspension, after a red card against Leeds at the tail-end of the Super League season that carries over into the World Cup. He would have been available for Wales' final group game against Papua New Guinea, but understandably was not named in the 24-man tournament squad.

Newcastle Knights centre Bradman Best is also absent as he needs surgery on thumb ligaments to be ready in time for the next NRL season, while club team-mate Tyson Frizell - who played all three group games for Wales in 2017 - is unavailable and thought to be pondering his international future.

"We've got Gil Dudson suspended, we've got Bradman Best as a heritage player from Australia, a regular NRL player and his club (Newcastle Knights) wouldn't allow him to come basically because he's got to have surgery on an injury, and we've also had Tyson Frizell who is unavailable," Kear said.

"They're four high-quality players who we haven't got, but it's no good dwelling on what we haven't got, what we have to do is work hard with what we have got and try to be successful with that."

That leaves Wales with just two fully professional players in their squad, Salford Red Devils wing Rhys Williams - Wales' record cap holder and try scorer - and Wakefield Trinity wing Kyle Evans, a recent convert from union with just a handful of professional league games under his belt.

Salford wing Rhys Williams will give Wales a cutting edge out wide

But there is still a wealth of top-flight experience such as skipper Elliot Kear who now plays for Championship outfit Bradford Bulls.

"We've got a fair challenge with the opposition we're playing against, which features lots of NRL players, as well as good Q (Queensland) Cup, New South Wales Cup players," Kear admitted.

"We've got two full-time players, we're aware of that; we've got Rhys Williams who is at Salford and Kyle Evans who's at Wakefield - and Kyle is very new to rugby league, he's a rugby union convert, and the rest of our lads are part-time.

"That's where it's at, but we feel we've made a good job of organising the camp so that the people who need to keep their work onside, they've been able to do so."

Leigh Centurions full-back Caleb Aekins is another with top-flight experience, having played in the NRL and made his international debut in Wales' warm-up loss to Lebanon earlier in October.

Aekins was born and raised in New Zealand, but can trace his Welsh heritage through his mother Kimberley, and is now in line to make his competitive Test bow on his Leigh Sports Village home club ground.

"He was at Penrith and Canberra before he went to Leigh and his heritage is Barry Island, so we've let him know that and the bits and bobs about Barry Island, and hopefully he's bought into what we're trying to achieve," Kear said.

"But he is a quality player, there's no doubt about that, every time you see him on the training pitch you can see his absolute quality."

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With the tournament having kicked off on Saturday with England v Samoa, Wales against Cook Islands is the last of the round one fixtures - but after a five-year wait for this World Cup and the chance of more training time, Kear is happy with an extra five days.

"I'm happy about that to tell you the truth, because what it's allowed us to do is first of all realise that it's a real important competition, the magnitude of the competition," he said.

"Secondly... a lot of the other teams are really stocked with full-time players, so they've had a jump on us with the preparation, but what this has done by allowing us to be the last group game it's given us a longer time to prepare.

"I'm absolutely delighted about that, so I do feel as if we can give our all on Wednesday.

"It's a very short turnaround then for Tonga, five-day turnaround for Tonga before we have PNG in the final group game. I'm delighted it's worked out like this to tell the truth and it's just great to see the competition unfold.

"This has been a long time in the making and we are very excited about game one."

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