England’s elimination from the World Cup was confirmed after Tonga beat Samoa 20-18 in their final group game.
England sealed victory 34-12 over Papua New Guinea on Friday but needed to win by a wide margin to give themselves a chance to leapfrog Samoa in Pools B and C and advance to the semi-finals on points difference.
Brian McDermott’s side’s hopes rested on Tonga winning by more than 46 points to reach the last four for the seventh tournament in a row.
Instead they are on the plane home from Australasia despite winning two of their three games.
A 30-12 defeat by Tonga in the opening game proved costly, with an 82-0 win over France leaving England with 68 points to make up in Samoa.
They failed to mount a meaningful attack in a 32-10 win over Papua New Guinea.
English hopes were briefly sparked when Tonga went 8-0 up, Robert Toia scoring the opener after a near 50m sprint.
With Isaiya Katoa converting and then kicking a penalty, England only needed Tonga to score another 39 points without reply to stay in the tournament.
However, Brian To’o’s try put Samoa back to 8-4 at the end of the first half.
Jojo Fifita put Tonga 14-4 ahead of To’o, Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow and Ronald Volkman put Samoa two points ahead, only for Addin Fonua-Blake to win it for Tonga.
Tonga will play New Zealand in the last four, while Samoa will face Australia in a repeat of the 2022 final.
Is there a downside to the Rugby League World Cup format?
The new tournament structure, which has been reduced from 16 teams to 10, came after Australia was included as hosts after France pulled out in 2023 for financial reasons.
In effect, this means that every group game in Group B and C has been more at stake than before.
The tournament has two pools, one with four teams – Australia, New Zealand, Cook Islands and Fiji – and the other with six teams.
England were drawn into the second group, Group B and C, along with Tonga, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Lebanon and France.
The top two teams from each group qualify for the knockout rounds and in the event of a tie, teams are judged on their head-to-head record before points differential.
McDermott’s side were beaten in their first match against Tonga, which put their hopes of qualification on hold, despite later beating France by 82 points in the second round.
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Jon Wilkin believes the structure of the Rugby League World Cup was ‘fundamentally flawed’
Sky Sports’ Jon Wilkin said: “Australia have done a great job of putting together a tournament in such a short space of time, but it was fundamentally wrong, unfair in the extreme right from the start.
“The current structure of the competition is just diabolical. England have been given an incredibly difficult task because they basically played their quarter-final in the first week.”
“England knew after their defeat against Tonga that it was going to be all about points difference and (qualification) was going to be incredibly difficult,” Wilkin said. “I think that the structure and organization of the competition was done in a short time.
“I think the International Rugby League, who created this tournament, have done a tremendous job of developing it and actually getting it to a position where we can have the tournament.
“So I commend them for that, but I think the structure of the tournament is laughable. Is there no quarter-final? There are a number of ways you could have produced or designed a quarter-final situation.
“England should be in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. They had a disappointing 30-40 minutes against Tonga and are out.”