Rugby League World Cup: England lose 24-6 to Samoa and make group-stage exit from women's tournament

Friday, 30 October 2026 at 09:43

England have crashed out of the Women’s Rugby League World Cup after a 24-6 defeat to Samoa in Wollongong.

Stuart Barrow's side needed victory to secure a top-two finish in Group A and qualify for a third consecutive World Cup semi-final, only to see their campaign ended by a second successive loss.

Freedom Crichton Ropati scored a first-half hat-trick as Samoa raced into a 12-0 lead at the break, with Mercedez Taulelei-Siala extending the Pacific islanders' advantage early in the second half.

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Evie Cousins scored England's only try as they looked to battle back into the contest in captain Jodie Cunningham's final match, but Samoa held firm and extended their winning margin with Pauline Piliae-Rasabale's late score.

England's defeat follows a 15-try thrashing by Australia on Saturday and sees them end the pool stage in third spot on two points, joining Wales - who they beat 70-6 in their tournament opener - in making an early exit.

How Samoa ended England's World Cup hopes

Destin Mino-Sinapati nearly got Samoa off to the dream start but failed to ground the ball cleanly in the corner, only for them to hit the front in the ninth minute when Ropati acrobatically dived over in the corner.

Samoa piled on further pressure and exploited space on offer by England, with a sweeping move seeing Ekepati offload for Ropati to score again on 19 minutes.

England failed to make inroads during the opening 35 minutes, with Roach knocking on less than 20 metres from the line during a rare attack, before Ropati completed her hat-trick in the 29th minute with another score in the right corner.

All three touchline conversions during the first half were missed by Pauline Piliae-Rasabale, who also failed to kick the extras when Taulelei-Siala touched down early in the second half to end an impressive right-to-left move.

Cousins offered England a lifeline in the 41st minute, rolling through Tyra Ekepati's attempted tackle to complete a powerful score, with Isabel Rowe adding the extras to leave them within 10 points of their opponents.

Samoa were gifted a penalty under the posts a few minutes later after a ball strip from Lucie Sams, with Piliae-Rasabale taking the two-pointer, although England remained in the contest heading into the closing stages.

England wasted a chance to make it a one-try game when Fran Goldthorp threw a forward overhead pass to Anna Davies, who would have been free to score, with qualification hopes ended when Rimoni went over in the 66th minute.

Rimoni's try under the posts - converted by Piliae-Rasabale - sparked wild celebrations from Samoa, who are through to the semi-finals for the first time in their history.

Samoa progress as England 'sad to be going home'

England head coach Stuart Barrow:

"I think we lost to the better side on the day, I'm not going to deny that. I thought it was a good game and it's a good game for England to be in, because we have a problem at the moment.

"We play France or Wales and - no disrespect to those nations - but we win them, and then we play Jillaroos and we lose heavily, so this was quite a nice game to be in where it was competitive all the way. The more of those we could get as a nation would definitely help us.

"We had a very young group, average age of 21 and a half, 22 across the group. A lot of those players will go on in four years time and be better for this experience and that's a good place to leave it, but we're very sad to be going home."

England captain Jodie Cunningham:

"This group of girls is really special. It's been an honour to captain the side and play in four World Cups. I've lived my dream a million times over. The girls gave everything out there today and it didn't stick.

"Samoa were fantastic and I wish them all the best in the next round."