The Cook Islands Rugby Union says financial constraints mean they will have to pick mostly local players for the Oceania Cup match against Tahiti in August.
The winner of this year's tournament will advance to a two-match series against the winner of the Asia regional qualifying tournament between Hong Kong, Malaysia and South Korea.
The winner of that series will contest the Rugby World Cup repechage tournament, alongside the third-ranked team from the Pacific Nations Cup between Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.
Cook Islands Rugby Union president Moana Moeka'a said nearly all of the funding for their international programmes come from Rarotonga and it's simply not sustainable to fly in a bunch of players from New Zealand and Australia.
"You just bring someone from New Zealand for a week and that costs you probably NZ$2000 just for one player, to get him up here and look after him and feed him," he said.
"That is part of the problem.
"We have been, over the last couple of years, trying to forge relationships with our Cook Islands people in New Zealand to assist in this area.
"I've just been President for the last couple of years and what I've actually found - especially last year - is a good 95-97 percent of the international programme is actually funded out of Rarotonga," said Moeka'a.
"That's not sustainable, we can't afford to do that so we've really got to look elsewhere to try and source the finance to try and assist us - especially in terms of bringing players from outside of the Cook Islands together or even taking (local) players to New Zealand."
Photo: Bruce Southwick/Zoomfiji The Cook Islands won the Oceania Cup in 2013.