The
Tonga national rugby league team is a national sporting side, representing
Tonga in
rugby league football. Rugby league is a popular sport in Tonga, and the national team has become one of the best performed nations in the world. Tonga competes biennually with other several other
Pacific Islands nations in the
Pacific Cup a competition they have won outright on two occasions, along with finishing as the runner-up on another two. They are the
fourth-ranked team in the world currently, behind only the "big three" rugby league nations in
Australia,
New Zealand and
England. Tonga to date have competed at two
Rugby League World Cups in
1995 and
2000 and were the first team to qualify for the
2008 tournament.
Rugby league was introduced to Tonga in 1986 with the staging of the Pacific Cup in Rarotonga and in 1988 the national side played its first
Test match against
Western Samoa in Apia. Since then Tonga has played regularly against the
Pacific Islands nations and on a less regular basis against nations such
England,
France and
New Zealand.
While Tonga have always been a well performed rugby nation since their début match in 1988 it is more recently where they have made their most serious progress in the international game. They finished second in the inaugural
Federation Shield in 2006 where they beat both
France and
Samoa and since 1988 have qualified for two World Cups where Tonga have however performed unexceptionally and have as of yet failed to qualify past the...
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