The Cook Islands are hoping to spring a surprise at the Oceania Men's Sevens Championship in Sydney this weekend.
Two spots for next year's World Cup are up for grabs along with places at the Gold Coast, Wellington and Hong Kong legs of the World Series.
With pool rivals Samoa already qualified for every major tournament, Cook Islands coach Ramsey Tomokino says they will be targeting the match as a big chance of an upset.
He says the their chief rivals for the remaining berth are likely to be Tonga and Papua New Guinea.
"To achieve that we'd have to finish higher than Tonga and PNG. Let's say if Tonga finish ahead of us we'd have to finish the next highest team to be able to get to Hong Kong and if we missed out on these other tournaments, including the world cup, but if we could get to Hong Kong then we're in a far better position to be able to push for an opportunuity to become a core team so we're hoping to come out of this tournament with hopefully all four of those opportunities to go to those four tournaments."
Ramsey Tomokino says the Cook Islands players have been training on their own and will assemble on Wednesday in Sydney.
