El Magic spoils Cook's broth

Karl Temata makes ground against Lebanon

Hazem El-Mazri, known as "El Magic", kicked a conversion in the dying minutes to hand Lebanon a 22-22 draw with the Cook Islands.

The Cedars, trailing 22-10 with five minutes remaining, crossed twice to snatch victory from the gallant Cook Islands side.

El-Mazri scored his second try of the match three minutes from time and then potted the match-tying conversion from a difficult angle to give both sides their first World Cup point.

The dramatic finale was fitting for the first ever rugby league game held indoors - the roof of the Millennium Stadium was closed - but looked beyond Lebanon after Stevie Berryman had crossed for his second of the match.

The game was the first played indoors

Lebanon, dominated possession through out the match but failed to convert their opportunities.

They threatened early when winger Mohammad Abbas he was pushed out a metre short of the line.

With the Cook Islands' first real possession scrum-half Leroy Joe darted from dummy half to cross under the posts.

Abbas again went close to scoop up a long kick through but his opposite winger Tiri Toa hauled him down inches short.

In the same move he did make it over the line but the try was ruled out for an earlier knock on.

Defence held firm

The Cook Islands defence again held firm to deny Abbas in the same corner before the play swept to his team-mate on the opposite flank - Travis Touma - to chalk up the Cedars' first points.

But from the restart the Cooks hit back when impressive centre Peter Lewis broke the defence and his endeavour was capped by loose forward Berryman.

He waltzed past an ineffectual tackle and then added the conversion to extend the Cooks' lead.

St Helens' centre Kevin Iro had a try ruled out after a forward pass before Lewis again broke the line a drew tacklers to release winger Toa to race in for the Cook's third try.

Scraps

Living off scraps of possession the Cook's led at the break but their willingness to throw the ball around was penalised when El-Mazri intercepted to race in from 60 metres out.

Lebanon botched two premium try-scoring opportunities in the second half the best of which Touma failed to catch a bomb with the tryline open.

With six minutes left Berryman's second looked to have sealed the match but the Cedars' hit back through centre Hassan Saleh.

With time almost up the man known as "El Magic" picked up a loose ball and muscled his way over under two tacklers.

He dusted himself off to slot the conversion to set up a frenetic final few minutes.

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Cook Islands: Piakura, Toa, Lewis, Iro, Temata, Bowen, Joe, Tuakuru, Clark, Temu, Samuels, Pau, Berryman. Replacements: Andersson, Shepherd, Ruaporo, Cook.

Lebanon: Chahal, Abbas, H. Saleh, H. El Masri, Touma, Stanton, S. El Masri, Maroon, N. Saleh, Chamoun, Salem, Tamer, Daher. Replacements: Khoury, Lichaa, Katrib, Nohra.

Referee: Bill Shrimpton (New Zealand)