The Kiwis face a Tongan side coming into the match with three straight wins over England 30-12, Lebanon 36-0 and Toa Samoa 20-18. After losing 24-22 to the Kangaroos in the tournament opener, the Kiwis have scored at a point a minute after racking up 160 points against the Cook Islands (82-16) and Fiji (78-0).<\/p>\n
Leading the way in the points-scoring have been centre Casey McLean and winger Jamayne Isaako. McLean has seven tries in three games, including four against Fiji. After scoring in every test he has played since his 2024 debut, the 20-year-old has 15 tries in seven internationals, seven short of Manu Vatuvei\u2019s New Zealand record of 22.<\/p>\n
High-scoring Issako is closing in on Shaun Johnson\u2019s all-time points-scoring mark of 225 in tests. He claimed the Kiwis\u2019 record for most goals in a test with 13 against the Cook Islands and then repeated it against Fiji to take his career tally for New Zealand to 215 points. In this World Cup alone, he has 74 points from three games, including 31 goals from 32 attempts.<\/p>\n
2026 RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD CUP SEMI-FINAL<\/p>\n
NEW ZEALAND KIWIS v TONGA<\/p>\n
1 Keano Kini<\/p>\n
2 Jamayne Isaako<\/p>\n
3 Dane Gagai<\/p>\n
4 Casey McLean<\/p>\n
5 Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad<\/p>\n
6 Kodi Nikorima<\/p>\n
7 Jahrome Hughes<\/p>\n
8 James Fisher-Harris (c)<\/p>\n
9 Jeremy Marshall-King<\/p>\n
10 Moses Leota<\/p>\n
11 Isaiah Papali\u2019i<\/p>\n
12 Briton Nikora<\/p>\n
13 Joseph Tapine (v\/c)<\/p>\n
14 Te Maire Martin<\/p>\n
15 Naufahu Whyte<\/p>\n
16 Erin Clark<\/p>\n
17 Xavier Willison<\/p>\n
18 Scott Sorensen<\/p>\n
19 Leo Thompson<\/p>\n
20 Tanner Stowers-Smith<\/p>\n
21 Kalyn Ponga<\/p>\n
22 Phoenix Crossland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kiwis face a Tongan side coming into the match with three straight wins over England 30-12, Lebanon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":951062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[517912,1914,64,63,22806,3933,71344,580,4717,109470,15499,2877,99938,3127,517913,402322,760,46907,25906,85,9677,1928,18559,1720,3205],"class_list":["post-951061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-1005pm","tag-against","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-been","tag-cup","tag-extended","tag-for","tag-in","tag-kalyn","tag-kiwis","tag-league","tag-named","tag-new","tag-nzt","tag-ponga","tag-rugby","tag-saturday","tag-semifinal","tag-sports","tag-squad","tag-their","tag-tonga","tag-world","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}