What needs to happen for England to reach semi-finalspublished at 07:35 BST
07:35 BST
England v France (07:35 BST)
Tonga followed up their opening round win over England with a 36-0 victory over Lebanon on Friday to put themselves in pole position to reach the last four of the tournament.
And Samoa’s thumping 78-4 win over France plus their 64-6 triumph over Papua New Guinea this morning leaves England in all sorts of bother.
Brian McDermott’s side are now 150 points worse off than Ben Gardiner’s Samoa team in a combined Pool B and C table and basically need to win big today.
They will then to defeat PNG on Friday, 30 October (09:05 GMT) in Wollongong and hope that Tonga can beat Samoa on Sunday, 1 November (09:05 GMT).
The format of this tournament features an unbalanced group stage, which has not helped England’s prospects.
Pool A has four teams – Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Cook Islands – fighting for two semi-final places in a round-robin format.
But Pools B and C are combined into one six-team league, from which only the top two will make the semi-finals. England, drawn in Pool B, are playing the three Pool C teams – Tonga, France and PNG.