One Spot Left on the Line: Every Team's Path to the Rugby League World Cup Semi-Finals

The Rugby League World Cup group stage is heading for a dramatic final weekend, with only one semi-final place still genuinely up for grabs in the men's tournament and a series of winner-takes-all fixtures to decide it. Australia are the only team already assured of a semi-final berth; they can lock up first place by beating the Cook Islands in Townsville on Saturday, October 31, with their semi-final scheduled for Allianz Stadium on Sunday, November 8. Elsewhere, everything is on the line. New Zealand against Fiji at Cbus Super Stadium on the Gold Coast on Saturday is winner-takes-all — the loser is out. Samoa against Tonga at a sold-out CommBank Stadium on Sunday, November 1, guarantees the winner a semi-final place in what promises to be one of the games of the tournament. And England against Papua New Guinea at WIN Stadium, Wollongong, on Friday, October 30, is loser-out too, with England needing to overturn a 68-point differential gap and PNG an 88-point gap to advance. Four games, four different permutations, and one semi-final spot left to claim: the group stage could hardly have been set up better.