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AAP
AAP
Sport
Ed Jackson

Qld rain affects Solomons WCQ preparations

Flooding in south-east Qld threatens to derail the Solomon Islands' World Cup qualifying campaign. (AAP)

The national team of the Solomon Islands are among the teams affected by south-east Queensland's severe weather.

In Brisbane for a series of warm-up matches against local opposition ahead of this month's Oceania World Cup qualifiers, the Bonitos were forced to scrap the first of four matches last weekend as heavy rain lashed Brisbane.

The Solomons will now turn their attention to matches against local clubs Caboolture and Brisbane Strikers, before playing a selection from A-League Men's club Brisbane in their final hit-out.

The games have been arranged by coach Felipe Vega-Arango in a bid to provide his team with competitive football before the qualifying competition in Qatar.

With the country's domestic competition ending in November and a planned President's Cup tournament scrapped due to COVID-19, the Brisbane matches are the team's first chance to train and play together in three months.

"It makes these games in Australia extremely important, because our players have not played for a long time," Vega-Arango told the Oceania Football Confederation website.

"The games in Australia will give us our only test before Qatar.

"The big hope is that nobody gets injured, because the long time without playing is going to make that very difficult."

The Solomons begin their campaign against the Cook Island in the opening match of the qualifiers on March 17.

The winner of the eight-nation tournament, for which New Zealand will be heavy favourites, will face the fourth-placed nation from Central and North America in an intercontinental playoff in Qatar in June for a spot in this year's World Cup finals.

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