Niue rugby league coach Brendan Perenara says with a second test match pencilled in for later this year their other focus is continuing to grow the sport back home.
Two Niue teams competed at the Cabramatta Nines tournament in Sydney on the weekend, a reflection of the rise in playing numbers over the past 12 months.
Niue played its first ever test match against Vanuatu last year and is scheduled to take on the Philippines in Sydney in October.
Currently the national squad is made up of players primarily based in Australia but Brendan Perenara says in future they want to include players based in Niue too.
"It's just a bit hard financially. We're trying to get up there to the Rock, Niue, to have a game up there. We're running a domestic comp out there - a nine a side comp - which enables us to play these international games. So we really need the guys in Niue to keep playing that domestic game up there so we can jump tiers from tier three to tier two and go higher and try to get to a World Cup placing".
The Niue national team finished runners-up in the Plate competition with the Development team second in the Bowl.
