EVERYONE had written the Cook Islands off ahead of Saturday's Pacific Cup rugby league qualifier against Samoa at Barlow Park but someone forgot to give the players the script.

The rugby league minnow refused to believe it had no chance in a match against its region’s heavyweight and played accordingly, leading from start to finish and stunning the heavily-favoured Samoans 22-20 to pull off one of the biggest upsets in international rugby league.

The victory had more that just pride attached, with the Cook Islands winning the final spot in the Pacific Cup where it will line up against Fiji, Tonga and host Papua New Guinea from this weekend.

After sprinting to a 10-0 lead courtesy of two tries inside the opening 10 minutes, the Cook Islands stuck to a simple but effective game plan based on field position and tireless work up the middle of the ruck and managed to hang on despite Samoa pressing its line in the final stages of the match.

The Samoan side, packed with NRL and Super League talent, failed to control the ball well enough to take advantage of its line-up despite showing flashes of brilliance when it did hold the ball.

Cook Islands coach David Fairleigh was thrilled for his side, comprised mostly of players from the NRL’s National Youth Competition.

"I don't think we've got one guy in the side tonight that's played NRL – maybe (former Pride forward) Ben Vaeau’s played a bit for the Cowboys, but it was a tremendous effort," Fairleigh said.

"I knew it meant a lot to the guys when I saw the two players that missed out on the team.

"I just thought, we've got a bit of spirit here."

Despite the passion of his players, Fairleigh said there had been much talk in the lead-up of keeping emotion out of the game and sticking to the simple plan.

"It’s a game of footy and we just needed to concentrate on the basics, I know it sounds pretty boring," Fairleigh said.

"But the last 15 minutes it was pretty hard not to get carried away with the emotion of it, just the spirit from both sides really, they fought to the very end.

"(There was) a tremendous belief and spirit amongst the side. Everyone wrote us off all week, there was a lot of stuff said, no one gave us a hope to win this game.

"We had a very, very simple game plan and the guys executed it very well, I was very happy with it."

One of the stars was second-rower Fred Makimare who scored twice in the opening half to send his side to halftime with a 16-10 lead that set up the win.

Earlier, an Indigenous Combined Secondary Schools side beat Polynesian Combined Secondary Schools 31-26.

COOK ISLANDS 22 (Fred Makimare 2, Daniel Fepulai, Vincent Ngaro tries; Brad Takarangi 3 goals) d SAMOA 20 (Patrick Ah Van 2, Misi Taulapapa, Harrison Hansen tries; Peter Mata'utia 2 goals).

INDIGENOUS COMBINED SECONDARY SCHOOLS 31 (Clifford Beetham 2, Robbie Amber, Jayden Hodges, Jacob Bob tries; Amber 5 goals, field goal) d POLYNESIAN COMBINED SECONDARY SCHOOLS 26 (Esedia Fa'afa 2, Russell Rapira, Mitchell Grimes, Storm Tamati tries; Grimes 3 goals).

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