By AAP
England’s hopes of reaching the World Cup semi-finals are already on life support after suffering a 30-12 loss to world No.5 Tonga in their blockbuster showdown in Perth.
With His Majesty King Tupou VI and crown prince Tupouto’a ‘Ulukalala among the sellout 18,302 crowd at HBF Park on Saturday night, Tonga produced a defensive masterclass in the four-tries-to-two victory.
The result put Tonga in the box seat to reach the semis, with games against Lebanon and Samoa to round out their group stage.
In contrast, world No.3 England have been left on the brink of elimination – even if they win their remaining two games against France and PNG.
Under the confusing group stage system employed for the World Cup, only two teams from across pools B and C will progress to the last four.
If England finish on the same amount of wins as Tonga, then the Pacific Islanders will go through given they won Saturday’s head-to-head battle.
Should England and Samoa end up with the same number of wins, the tiebreaker will be which nation has the better points-for-and-against differential.
With Samoa opening their campaign with a 78-4 smashing of France, it leaves England needing to post massive wins in their remaining two games to stay alive.
That’s why Saturday’s clash between England and Tonga was dubbed the game of death – with the losers facing a mathematical tightrope to qualify past the pool stage.
“I just thought the longer the game went, the better we got,” Tonga coach Kristian Woolf said.
“We got more and more confident. And what I liked the most was the way we defended.
“We put ourselves under pressure a little bit there a couple of times, but our defence was outstanding.
“You could see how much the game meant to us, and we showed that in our effort, and that’s something that’s going to carry us through the tournament.”
There were plenty of big hits early, with England winger Zach Eckersley copping it big time after dropping a high ball and then being pummelled by a charging Dallin Watene-Zelezniak.
Stefano Utoikamanu opened the scoring in the 24th minute when he found a hole in England’s defence to stroll over untouched.
A pair of Isaiya Katoa penalty goals extended the margin to 10 points by halftime, with England left to rue a series of fumbles and near misses.
England started the second half full of steam, resulting in a team-lifting try to AJ Brimson in the 46th minute.
But in a game where hard work was king, it was a slice of fortune that ended up giving Tonga a vital edge with Haumole Olakau’atu scoring the first of his two tries after he soccered the ball into an opponent’s arm and then gathered the bouncing rebound.
And when Tuimoala Lolohea’s neat dribble found Tolutau Koula in the corner to make it 22-6 in the 58th minute it was as good as game over.
Katoa starred with the boot, nailing three of four conversion attempts to go with four penalty goals.
The win was a powerful statement from Tonga, whose only previous taste of international success against England came in 2019 when they beat Great Britain.
“It was a really good contest, and when it wasn’t a contest, that was probably more to do with us in the errors that we made,” England coach Brian McDermott said.
“They’re a big team, strong team, and they’ve got some tremendous players in there. And I thought we stuck toe-to-toe with them for nearly all the game,” he said